


The Bloody Man

by Syls Darkplace (sylsdarkplace)



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Barebacking, Blood Drinking, F/M, M/M, Multi, Rimming, Somnophilia, Vampire Turning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-24
Updated: 2013-11-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:27:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 13
Words: 52,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26855197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sylsdarkplace/pseuds/Syls%20Darkplace
Summary: In pursuit of a family legend, archeology student Jared unearths a grave in the Texas desert that brings him face-to-face with a century-old vampire.
Relationships: Jared Padalecki/Jensen Ackles/Others, Jensen Ackles/Jared Padalecki, Jensen Ackles/Other(s)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 31





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is originally from 2013, maybe? It was published for a while as original fic and never got to AO3 when I pulled the publishing contract. So here you go. Hope you like it.

Jared didn’t think he’d find it. What were the odds even of finding century old grave with the map he’d found amongst his grandfather’s papers? A cairn on an abandoned ranch in the middle of the Texas desert marked the grave of the man who’d brought a curse upon his maternal line from his great-great-great-whatever-grandfather down. Jared didn’t believe in such a curse, but as an archeology student at UT Dallas, he was fascinated by what he knew of the story and the strange burial in the Texas desert.  
.  
It was the story of a cruel man, the Bloody Man his papaw called him, who brought sickness and death to the family. Jared didn’t know much. The Bloody Man was only spoken of when Jared was quiet and the adults forgot he was around, and he was rarely quiet as a child. What he did hear didn’t hold many details. The Bloody Man stole the young men and women of the area and ruined them. He drank their blood, Papaw said. 

When Jared was a child he thought that the Bloody Man was a monster, something from a horror movie, but as he grew older he thought that maybe he was real, a real life serial killer. More than the movie monster, the idea of this serial killer stalking his family made his blood run cold. 

Certainly Jared’s family had believed in the Bloody Man because upon his death, his body had been taken to the most remote part of the ranch and buried under a pile of stones. But that death and burial hadn’t prevented his evil from infecting the family. The land had begun to die, first near the cairn, but then in an ever growing radius until the family had abandoned the ranch and moved south. Since those days, every catastrophe that befell his mother’s family was blamed on the curse of the Bloody Man. From miscarriages to car accidents, the curse of the Bloody Man had followed them for generations.

Jared had been surprised and excited when he’d found the map amongst his grandfather’s papers after the funeral. It was a true treasure map for an archeology student. But now, standing before the pile of stones as the evening shadows stretched across the desert, Jared felt let down. So what? A pile of stones that explained nothing, but something under the stones might. He might learn how the Bloody Man died or what his real identity was. Jared paused for only a moment before he began to pull stones off the pile.

By the time he reached bare earth, Jared was sweaty and covered in dust. He pulled the hem of his t-shirt up and wiped his face with it. Damp, red dirt clung to the fabric. The shadows had grown longer, but it took a long time for the sun to set over the desert. He stood breathing heavily and staring at the hard, dry earth. The thought of having to dig as much as six-feet down and possibly find nothing made Jared re-consider the project, but he was nothing if not stubborn, and he wasn’t going to put this much work into it just to give up. Besides, if he went home now, he’d never get to sleep tonight. 

He grabbed a small shovel he kept in the truck and began digging. The dirt was hard packed from a century of settling, but once he began chipping away at it, he made progress. He was surprised to hit wood after less than a foot. With renewed hope, he quickly cleaned the rest of the dirt off the coffin lid and began prying at it. The wood cracked and splintered under the assault. He didn’t stop to think about finding a dead body inside, after all, it was a desert burial. He figured, the body would be dried like jerky. So, he was a little surprised to see that although the body looked somewhat dehydrated, the hair brittle and the clothes crumbling, it was remarkably well preserved. 

“Huh, the soil maybe,” he said out loud. He didn’t see any obvious signs of cause of death. No matter. Noting the waning sunlight, he straddled the grave and began to go through the pockets of the crumbling jacket. He pulled a small piece of paper from one and a handful of coins from another. A change in the light or a slight movement in the corner of his eye made him look up and into a startling pair of green eyes. Jared cried out and tried to jump out of the grave, but fingers like iron spikes gripped the back of his neck and more clutched the front of his shirt. He struggled with all the strength of his six and half foot frame and his 22 years, but was jerked on top of the body. Still, he flailed until cruel teeth sank into his neck.

He was momentarily shocked. This was a nightmare, not real life. But no, this was real. The Bloody Man was real, the pain was real.

“No!” Jared screamed. Again, he tried pushing at the figure holding him, but while one hand still gripped his neck, an arm had now slid around his back, and legs were wrapped around his own in a perverted parody of a loving embrace. He was pinned in the coffin, and the pain was fading. The sensation spreading from his throat to his face and chest, then into his arms and legs was like a narcotic. He felt blissful, warm, and heavy, and he was relaxing into the corpse’s embrace. For a moment, just a moment, he thought of the curse, of his own stupidity, of his mother’s horror and grief. 

^^o^^

Jared was underwater. He was trying to rise to the surface, but his limbs were heavy. His heartbeat pounded in his head slower and slower, and he was drowning. He wasn’t about to give up now when there was a bit of strength left in his body, not as long as his heart continued to beat. There was light above him, weak and watery, and he struggled toward it. He broke the surface with a gasp. He was lying in bed. A dream, it was just a dream, a horrible exhausting dream. His head ached, and his mouth was so dry that his tongue stuck to his lips when he licked them. He tried to speak but all that came out was a croak.

A movement by the window caught his eye, the figure turned, moved toward him, and Jared’s body jerked backward. He pressed himself against the headboard. 

“You ...” The sound came out raw, and it felt like a jagged shard of glass in his throat.

“Don’t be afraid,” the greed-eyed creature said. It offered Jared a glass of water, and despite his terror, Jared reached for it. He had to have it. He’d never been so thirsty. His fingers closed weakly around the glass. It made a tsking sound and held the glass to Jared’s lips. Jared drank thankfully, water trickled down his chin. 

The glass was pulled away. “Not too fast. You’ll be sick.” It set the glass down and sat on the edge of the bed. 

Jared was practically pushing himself through the headboard, and he didn’t take his eyes off the creature before him. It bore little resemblance to the desiccated body in the grave. It was tall, and one of Jared’s own t-shirts was stretched across a well-muscled chest and shoulders. The hair that had been long and brittle in the coffin was now golden brown and shorn. Freckles lay across creamy skin, and its lips were full and red. But the eyes – Jared recognized the bottle-green eyes fringed in long lashes. They were the last thing he remembered before …

“I won’t harm you,” it said in warm purr.

Jared scoffed. “Why, why should I believe that?”

“I haven’t harmed you.”

“Yeah? It doesn’t feel that way.”

“You’re weakened, but you’re young. You’ll recover quickly.” The green eyes never left his, and Jared new what a mouse caught in the gaze of cat must feel like. “Why do you think I’d harm you?”

Jared felt like he was pushing his luck with every word, but every moment he kept this creature talking, was a moment he lived. “Why wouldn’t you?”

A slight smile curled the red lips. That was his blood causing that blush, Jared thought with a queasy twist in his stomach. “You woke me and gave me your blood. You raised me from perpetual sleep and gave me life. I owe you an immeasurable debt of gratitude.” The creature leaned toward him, and there was nowhere left for Jared to retreat.

“I didn’t ...” Jared swallowed painfully. “I didn’t give you anything. You took it.”

“Mmm, I apologize. I was starving.” The creature moved even closer. Jared was bracketed between its right hand on the bed and its left on the wall next to Jared’s head. “I’ll make it up to you.” Its breath ghosted over Jared’s neck and made him shiver. “I can give you the greatest gift – eternal life, immortality.” It kissed his throat. 

“Ngh,” was all Jared could manage.

“Wouldn’t you like that? Hmm? To be young and beautiful forever; to never be sick; to heal as though no injury had been done; to see all the world, the future. I can give you that. It’s the least I can do.”

Jared’s heart pounded as the green-eyed monster pressed his lips beneath Jared’s ear and over his pulse-point. “No, no, no,” Jared gasped. “There has to be a catch, a downside.”

“Hmm.” The creature continued to nuzzle his throat, and Jared found that not only was his heart pounding, but his cock was twitching. Panic and arousal were washing over him like opposing armies, and his mind was a confusion of fight, flight, and surrender. 

“There is, yes, you watch those you love, the ones who won’t join you, grow old and die.” 

The creature now licked a stripe from Jared’s collar bone to his ear, and a strangled sound erupted from Jared’s throat. 

“Shhhh, but you’ll always have me. No matter what you decide, you have me. You’re mine now.”

The vampire drew back, and green eyes again bored into Jared’s hazel eyes. The creature took Jared’s face in his hands and kissed him. The full lips pressed gently, chastely against his before the tongue slipped out and pushed against the seam of Jared’s lips, parting them, claiming his mouth, searching, possessing. Jared gasped when the vampire released his mouth and stroked his hair.

“I’m going to take care of you, my darling.” The soft smile pulled at those lips again. “You’re one of mine – I can feel it – one of the Ackles bloodline; one of my children’s children’s children. I smell it, taste it on you. Why not double it? Why not become blood of my immortal blood?”

And Jared wanted ... holy fuck, his cock was hard and painful in ... nothing. He was naked under the sheets. And he was cleaned of sweat and the dust of the desert. He stared at the vampire with wide eyes. Somehow it had gotten him back to his apartment, undressed him, washed him, and put him to bed. The intimacy of that made Jared flush, and he pulled the sheets up higher over his chest. The creature smirked.

“You’re beautiful,” it said. It slid a hand down his chest, under the sheet, and rubbed a nipple with its thumb. Jared sucked in a breath.

“No,” he said with a shaky voice. “What are you doing to me?”

“Nothing. Now,” it said. “Oh I was seducing you before. But this ...” It rolled the nipple between its fingers. “... this is just your natural reaction. You are attracted to me as I am you.”

“No, I’m not, I don’t ...”

The thing chuckled. “Oh, I’m afraid you do, but don’t be ashamed. I tend to bring that out in people – their true desires. And how lucky for me that this is what you want.”

“No, look, no, I ... I need to think. I need to ... I can’t do this, please.”

The vampire’s smile faded and it leaned back. The hand on Jared’s chest slid down his side to his hip. “All right,” it said matter of factly. “What would you do?”

“I, I want to know the truth,” Jared said.

“The truth. What truth?”

“About you. About the Bloody Man.”

“The Bloody Man? Is that what I’m called?” Its gaze dropped for a moment before it picked up the water glass and handed it back to Jared. “Here, drink. You need it.”

Jared took a long drink while watching the creature. For the first time, its eyebrows pulled down, and Jared almost felt bad for making the reference. He wished now he’d just asked its name. “You said, suggested that I’m a descendent.”

“Yes.” The thumb that had been playing with Jared’s nipple was now rubbing the cut of his hip through the sheet.

“No one ever said ... I mean, you were just a story ...”

“A bogeyman.”

“Yes,” Jared admitted. 

“I see.”

“So tell me the truth. Tell me your name.”

“Jensen Ackles.”

Jared’s mouth dropped open. He knew the name. He’d found it through Civil War and census records when he was doing genealogy research, but it wasn’t in the family Bible. Now he knew why. This creature, this vampire, had sired his mother’s family line. Long lashes fell over green eyes as he lowered his head, and for the first time, Jared thought of the vampire as a man. 

“So this is how my family remembers me – as a monster, as the Bloody Man.”

“Yes.”

He nodded. “I admit I was not always ... I was made without guidance. When I was hungry, I fed like a wild animal. I had to learn how to feed without killing. Still, I was reckless for a time.” He took a deep breath and bit his lip. He hadn’t looked at Jared since he’d given his name. “I tried to change, but I suppose it was too late. The town had marked me as a monster. The local minister had called down the wrath of God on my family.”

“The curse,” Jared said. Green eyes met his.

“What?”

“My grandfather always talked about the family curse. Whenever something bad happened ... My mother said it was nonsense, that bad things happen in every family, but my grandfather believed in it.”

“Your mother is right. Curses are foolishness, but I’m sure that’s where the idea came from, all the same.”

“How did it happen?”

The vampire shook its head. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Jensen, please …”

A smile played over the full lips. “No, it’s history and has nothing to do with you and I.” The vampire stood. “Drink the rest of your water. Are you hungry? There’s an amazing cold box in your kitchen with food in it.”

Jared couldn’t help laughing. “A refrigerator.”

“Yes, you’ll have to explain it to me later. I’ll get you something to eat.”

“I can …”

“No,” Jensen said. “You’re still weak.”

“Wait.” Jared leaned forward. “I need to know … how did we get back here?”

The vampire paused in the doorway and tilted its head. “In your machine, of course.”

“My truck? You drove my truck? But … how?”

“Hmm, motor carriages were simpler when ... but this truck of yours isn’t so complicated. Faster than a horse.” He grinned. “I’d like to drive it again. I can’t wait to see what there is out there. The world must be a fascinating place. You have to show it to me.” 

“I … but how did you know where I live, how to get here?”

Jensen smiled and waved a hand dismissively. “I’ll explain later. It isn’t mysterious.” 

As soon as Jensen ducked out of the room, Jared pushed the covers back and sat on the side of the bed. He felt light headed but really wanted to put something on; just sweats and a t-shirt, anything to make himself feel less exposed, less vulnerable. He stood on quivering legs and staggered to the dresser. He managed to get a pair of boxers out of the drawer and get them on before his legs gave out under him. He panted as he tried to gather the strength to stand or at least crawl back to the bed. Suddenly an iron grip under his arms lifted him to his feet, and he found himself pinned between the dresser and the vampire. Jared was only too aware of the lean muscle pressed against his chest, stomach ... Angry green eyes glared up at him. 

“I told you to stay,” Jensen growled.

“I just ...”

“Hush.” 

Jensen swung him around and lifted him onto the bed, and he reminded himself to never underestimate the smaller man’s strength.

“You could have hurt yourself,” Jensen said as he sat down on the edge of the bed and offered him a plate. On it was some cold fried-chicken and potato salad that Jared had leftover from the day before. On the nightstand was a bottle of root beer. “Eat.” 

“I ... thank you.”

Jensen smiled and handed him a paper towel. “These are paper,” Jensen said.

“Yes,” Jared said around a bite of chicken.

“You throw them away when they’re dirty?”

“Yes.”

“Marvelous.”

“I never thought about it, but I guess so.”

“Imagine if you had to wash every rag that you wiped your mouth with.”

Jared laughed. “I don’t even want to know what you wiped your ass with.”

“No, you don’t.”.

Jared was silent as he ate, and Jensen got up and began looking around the room at Jared’s photos, books, CDs, and electronics.

“What’s this?”

“That’s a television. It ... you know what movies are? Films?”

“Yes.”

“It’s sort of like that, but in color and with sound.”

Jensen looked at him with raised eyebrows. “So what’s showing?”

“Oh, lots of things. Here.” He picked up the remote of the nightstand and turned the TV on. “Look, there are lots of different channels ...”

“Channels?” Jensen was crawling onto the bed next to him and trying to see what Jared was doing with the remote.

“Right, there ... well, you go through the channels ... they show different programs, like films ... with this button. It goes up or down. The channels are all numbered. See. Or you can look at the guide.” He brought the satellite guide up on the screen. “It will show you what’s on now by going up and down or you can go across and see what will be showing later.”

“How many of these channels are there?” Jensen asked with wide eyes a little too close to Jared for comfort.

“Oh, hundreds. Some just show movies, or shows about science or history or how to remodel your house, and there’s this thing called reality TV but it isn’t.”

“And they have sound.”

“Yes, some channels are just music. You know, different kinds of music – rock and blues, salsa and classical, bluegrass.”

“Rock?”

“Yes,” Jared said. “My God, you’ve never heard rock n’ roll.”

Suddenly Jensen was kissing him with fingers tangled in Jared’s hair. Their lips were slick with chicken grease, but it didn’t stop Jensen from dipping his tongue into Jared’s mouth before pulling back. 

Jensen laughed and licked his lips. “There’s so much you can show me.”

Jared blushed and handed Jensen the remote; glad to distract the creature. “Well, here. Check out what’s on.” Jared took a deep breath. He felt completely off balance, seesawing between fear and giddiness. He went back to finishing his meal while Jensen flipped through channels.

“I know it’s not magic, but I don’t see how it works,” Jensen said looking down at the remote. “Amazing.”

“No, it’s not magic, but I couldn’t tell you exactly how it works either.” He scraped the last bit of meat of the breastbone. 

“What’s this?” Jensen asked.

“Oprah.”

Again the raised eyebrow. 

“Okay, this is what’s called a talk show. People come on and, well, talk. Sometimes politicians, sometimes celebrities ...”

“Celebrities?”

“Wow, this is going to be harder than I thought. Yeah, a celebrity is someone famous – an actor, maybe, or you know, like a famous opera singer in your time would have been a celebrity. But sometimes talk shows focus on a subject like, umm, divorce or sexuality or, well, lots of things. And Oprah is the queen of talk shows.”

“A negress?”

“Dude, you don’t use that word.”

“Why? It’s not a slur.”

“Yeah, maybe not in 1900, but it is now. She’s an African-American.”

“That’s a cumbersome term.”

“Yeah, well ...”

“So ... African-Americans, they’re equal now.”

Jared sighed. “We’re still working on it. I mean, legally yeah, but that doesn’t mean that they are always treated the same as whites, but they aren’t the only ones. I mean, gays ...”

“Gays?”

“Homosexuals?”

“Yes.” Jensen smirked and Jared blushed again. They were going to have a talk later.

“Shit, not just gays, I mean, gays, bisexuals, lesbians, transgendered ...”

“Why don’t you get me a book,” Jensen said and turned his attention back to the TV.

Jared laughed. “Good idea or, you know, maybe we could find something on TV.”

“People really talk openly about these things?”

“Sure, well, don’t misunderstand. People are still attacked, assaulted, in some places for being gay or even being perceived to be gay. So, it isn’t safe to just be totally open about it everywhere.”

“So I shouldn’t kiss you in public.”

Jared’s mouth fell open, and Jensen just smiled.

^^o^^


	2. Chapter 2

The food must have acted as a sedative because the next thing Jared knew the bedroom was dark. He stretched until he groaned, and he felt fine. There were voices and a flickering light from the living room. He got up and successfully slipped into sweat pants and a t-shirt. He took a few tentative steps and didn’t experience any weakness or dizziness this time. He found Jensen on the couch in front of the TV. He was wearing a pair of Jared’s jeans with the hems rolled up and Jared’s favorite Green Day t-shirt.

“Feeling better?”

“Yeah, thanks.”

“It was my fault you were unwell in the first place.”

Jared shrugged and sat down next to him. “What are you watching ... Cops?”

“It’s quite amusing.”

Jared nodded. “Yeah.”

“People haven’t changed so much.”

“Hmm, they still get drunk, beat their wives, steal from each other, and generally act the fool.”

Jensen laughed. “Yes, that’s about it.”

“Yeah, I guess human nature can’t be changed.”

“No?”

“You know, like slavery. It’s against the law but there’s still racism. Women can vote, but they still get blamed for rape. Gays are still treated like deviants.”

“Hmm, but less so, I think.”

“Yeah, maybe so,” Jared admitted. He glanced over at the vampire who was studiously watching the television, and it worried Jared that Jensen would think that what he saw on TV was the truth. He ought to address it, he thought, but there was something else niggling at his brain. “Listen, can I … You made me an offer earlier, and I’m not saying I’m even considering it, but there are things I’d like to know.”

Jensen muted the sound on the TV and turned toward Jared. “All right, what do you want to know?” 

“Well, how does it happen? I mean, what you did … to me, that didn’t …”

“No, I could do that over and over, and as long as I didn’t completely drain you, as long as you had time to recover in between, that would never kill you or turn you.” Jensen bit his lip. His arm lay along the back of the sofa and his fingertips brushed Jared’s shoulder. “In order to turn you, I’d have to drain you almost to the point of death and then give you my blood.”

“Is it … unpleasant?”

“It has its moments.”

“When you bit me, it hurt at first, but that stopped and I felt, I don’t know, like I was, umm, it felt good, physically and, well, just completely, like being drunk, no, like, I don’t know, a drug or something.”

“Yes, there must be something in the saliva to help make the giver compliant,” Jensen said. “The blood gives me a similar feeling.” His fingers slid around the back of Jared’s neck and caressed his hairline. “You should feel it while having sex.” He leaned forward and kissed Jared.

“Jensen.” Jared could barely hear his own voice.

“Why are you so hesitant?”

“Why? Because you frighten me and because I don’t have sex with men.”

“You don’t have to be frightened of me, and just because you haven’t doesn’t mean the desire isn’t there.”

“That scares me too. You’ve offered me something that would change me irreversibly, and even though I haven’t accepted it, it’s, you’re already changing me. I feel out of control.” Jared met Jensen’s eyes then and saw what? Jared wondered. Concern? Sympathy? “Why do you want me? Why do you care?”

“Because we’ve shared blood. We have a connection that’s unbreakable.”

“That can’t be right,” Jared protested. “That can’t happen with every meal.” He felt anger rising now because he suspected the vampire was deceiving him.

“It wasn’t just another meal,” Jensen “You gave me life.” Jensen’s voice dropped to almost a whisper. “You started to ask me earlier how I died. The first time doesn’t matter, and the second time, I didn’t die. They wrapped me in silver chains and drained my blood until I was too weak to fight them. Then, they threw me in that hole and piled rocks on me. I wasn’t dead. I was … in hell. I was trapped in my body, and the thirst was unbearable. The thirst you felt earlier was nothing compared to it. I slipped into a dream, a nightmare. You woke me. I smelled your blood and somehow found the strength … I’m sorry. It was instinct.”

Jared shook his head. “Forget that,” he said. “That … I don’t know, I don’t resent you for that really. It’s this game you’re playing with me.”

“It’s not a game,” Jensen said. “I’ve been honest with you. I’ve told you what I want from you.”

“What about me? I have a life already. I have plans.”

“Of course,” Jensen said as though the thought hadn’t occurred to him before. “Of course, you do. Tell me.”

“I …” Jared faltered for a moment. He couldn’t think of all the things that were so important yesterday, but of course there was the thing that got him here in the first place. “I’m getting my degree in archeology. That’s why, I guess, I was out digging up graves.” He smiled ruefully. “And I have a family, and a girlfriend, Sandy … Oh shit, Sandy …” Jared jumped up from the sofa. “My cell phone … fuck.” Jensen’s eyebrows flew up at the curse. “It was in my pocket … when you undressed me, did you find it? Where are my clothes?”

“In the bedroom, but all I found in your pockets were your keys and your wallet.”  
Jared was already in the bedroom digging in the pockets of his jeans. “What? Shit, shit, shit. It must have … Oh my God, it’s probably in your grave. Jesus …I can’t believe I just said that.” He laughed. His heart was pounding, and he felt a little giddy. “This is insane.”

Jensen, who had followed him into the bedroom, went back into the living room, and Jared paced between the nightstand and the bureau. “I’ve lost my mind. This can’t be real. I …” A firm hand on his shoulder pushed him into sitting on the edge of the bed. A glass of whiskey was put in his hand.

“Drink that. You’re about to have the vapors, and that’s inappropriate in a man.” Jensen was smirking again. Jared frowned and tried to stand up, but the hand on his shoulder effectively held him down. “Tell me about this cell phone.”

Jared took a burning gulp of whiskey and let out a deep breath. “You know what a telephone is, right?”

Jensen nodded. “It’s a device that allows people to talk over long distances.”

“Right. Well, we have cell phones now. Tiny little devices that use some kind of electrical signal that goes through the air, and we can talk to people on the other side of the world.”

Jensen frowned. “But the Earth is round. How can the signal bend around the planet?”

Jared’s mouth dropped open. “Okay, I oversimplified that explanation. There are these things called satellites that orbit the Earth so high that they look like stars. The signals from the phones go to towers that then relay the signal to a satellite, which then sends it to another tower back on the ground and – there may are other towers involved – but the signal eventually gets to the phone of the person you’re calling.”

“How long does all that take?”

Jared shrugged and took another sip of whiskey. He realized that Jensen had just been distracting him with the question, and he was calm now. “Seconds,” he replied.

Jensen’s eyes sparkled. “I want one.”

Jared scoffed. “Who would you call?”

“You.”

“Right, of course.” He sighed. “I can’t believe I lost my phone … and where. You see this is exactly why reality TV isn’t real. No one would believe this.”

Jensen smiled and dropped to his knees in front of Jared. “You see, there’s a part of you that’s enjoying all this.” He scooted forward between Jared’s knees. He took the glass from Jared and downed the rest of the whiskey. Jared couldn’t take his eyes off Jensen’s face – the thick brush of lashes, wicked green eyes, sprinkle of freckles – Jesus, he couldn’t be making that up in his crazed mind, a vampire with freckles – and those full lips slightly parted. Jensen’s hands slid up Jared’s thighs until his thumbs caught in the crease at his hips and pulled the fabric of his sweats tight over his cock. Jared’s breath caught in his throat.

“You want this,” Jensen whispered. A hand cupped Jared’s hardening dick, rubbed. Jared groaned. “You had plans, ordinary plans, but your life could be extraordinary, darling.” 

The vampire’s hand slid around the back of Jared’s neck with slight pressure urged him forward, down, and Jared slid off the bed onto Jensen’s lap. Jared straddled the creature, and his hands grasped at short locks. Jensen moaned into Jared’s mouth, and Jared explored Jensen’s mouth with his tongue. He was consumed with the slick, wet heat until he felt the sharp stab of a tooth and tasted his own blood. Jensen’s body jerked like he’d been shocked and the sudden suction on Jared’s tongue went straight to his cock. 

Jared was suddenly on his back with his sweats around his knees, and Jensen was hovering over him. Jensen stroked Jared’s cock, and his hips bucked into Jensen’s grip.   
“Your last chance to say no,” Jensen said like a dare.

Jared shook his head, but said, yes. His hands grasped Jensen’s ribs and pulled him down. Jensen lifted his hips enough to get his jeans down around his thighs, and he pressed their cocks together. Jared gasped as Jensen’s teeth sank into his neck, and fuck, that hurt, a sharp, stinging burn and then, Jensen’s cock was sliding against his with a slick drag of skin on skin. Jared made a strangled noise in his throat and Jensen growled. Jared had a moment of clarity – this was a predator with its teeth in his throat, and he’d agreed to it. He couldn’t stop it. He could die. His heart was racing, and his skin was on fire. Every brush of Jensen’s skin on his was like a balm, and his lips on Jared’s neck were like honey and wine flowing into his veins.

The sound of Jared’s moans reverberated in his ears, bounced back at him from across a chasm of need and surrender, slipped in his ears, and buzzed along his nerves like bees on a honeycomb. His body writhed under Jensen, pinned at throat and groin, twin spikes of pleasure and possession. Jared vaguely realized his will was no longer his own, and his lizard brain said, shut up, and slammed the door. 

“Yes, yes, yes,” Jared begged. “Please.”

Jensen moved above him, rolling his hips and lapping at his throat. “Beautiful,” he whispered. “Mine.” And set his lips back to the wound, sucking hard and dragging a cry from Jared who felt the pull down to his groin where tension pooled and eddied. And he needed. His fingers dug into Jensen’s ribs, and his body arched off the floor. Jensen’s lips left his throat with a wet smack and covered Jared’s mouth, which filled with the salty, coppery tang of his own blood. He suckled Jensen’s bottom lip until the pool of tension in his groin burst up his spine, and he threw his head back with a scream. His spine was electrified, current running out along his ribs, shorting out and doubling back, drawing his balls up hard, painful, and he was shaking, shooting thick ropes of come between their bodies. 

Jensen followed, crushing Jared against him, and rocking his hips painfully into Jared’s. His mouth closed over the wound on Jared’s neck again and a second wave of pleasure washed over Jared pushing him like flotsam against the current. His moans quieted to whimpers, and Jensen lay across him, tongue idly flicking out to lap at torn skin.   
Jared felt boneless. He felt hollowed out, emptied and new. Jensen propped himself up on his elbows. His mouth and chin were crimson, his eyes dark and possessive. He smiled, bright white against red, and Jared wanted nothing more than to lick him clean. Jared’s tongue flicked out and over Jensen’s bottom lip. Jensen laughed and got to his feet, pulling Jared with him. He drew him into a tight embrace and their bodies slid together through the slick of their come. Jensen kissed him again, and Jared ran the flat of his tongue over Jensen chin and upper lip.

“Mmm, we should wash.”

“Shower.”

“Shower?”

Jared chuckled. “You’ll like it.”

And he did. Jensen couldn’t get enough of Jared’s soap slick skin, and Jared was mesmerized by the way water clung to Jensen’s lashes and droplets magnified individual freckles. He loved the taste and feel of the vampire’s slippery skin, and Jensen’s fingers explored every ridge of muscle and jut of bone on Jared’s body. His tongue would occasionally lick at the wound on Jared’s neck, and Jared was surprised to find that it didn’t hurt.

“You’re right. I like this shower,” Jensen said.

Jared was pressed into the corner, and Jensen kissed him as his fingers slid into the cleft of Jared’s ass. His eyes flew open. This was ... but he couldn’t bring himself to say stop. His nerves still buzzed, and his cock was responding to the occasional roll of Jensen’s hips. A soap-slick fingertip nudged and slid slightly into Jared’s hole. His hips jerked forward as thought trying to escape the invasion, but it only pushed farther in. It felt weird, wrong, but as it fucked into him, precome oozed from his cock. A second finger pushed in next to the first.

“Ngh, not sure.”

Jensen’s movements stilled. “Do you want me to stop?”

“No, but…” 

Jensen slowly began to pull his fingers out.

“No, wait,” Jared said. “Just slow, okay?” 

The fingers pressed deeper, rubbed over his prostate and, holy shit, the sensation made him bang his head against the wall. 

“Yes,” he gasped.

Jensen chuckled and pushed a third finger in, twisting and rubbing.

“I want you to turn around,” Jensen said. “I want to fuck you.”

“No, no, I don’t ... no.”

“I think you’ll like it.” 

Why exactly was he protesting, he wondered. There was nothing wrong with being bi, if that’s what this was. He nodded. “Okay.”

Jensen turned him toward the wall. His slid hands over wet tile, and Jensen’s cock, thick, hard, intractable, was pushing into him. Jared cried out and his hands grappled over the wall but found no purchase. Jensen wrapped an arm around his waist and continued pushing into him, opening him, filling him. When he was balls deep in Jared, he stopped and kissed his shoulder.

“Relax,” Jensen whispered. Jared took a deep breath. The pain was fading, and Jensen began to move, pulling almost all the way out before plunging back in, rubbing over Jared’s prostate again and again. Jared’s forehead fell against the wall, and he moaned. Holy fuck, the pressure was building again, threatening to knock his knees from under him. Jensen had both arms around him now, holding him up, angling his body for better contact with Jared’s prostate. Jensen was pounding a moan out of Jared with every thrust, and his teeth were set against Jared’s shoulder like a threat. Jared tipped his hips back in need and submission. What am I doing, he thought, begging? Shut the fuck up, said lizard brain.

And it hit him like a train, come splattering over the shower wall, and his knees did give out. Both he and Jensen went to their knees, but Jensen’s cock was deep inside him, pulsing, filling him with slick heat. Jensen licked Jared’s shoulder, and he realized he was bleeding again. Some tiny part of Jared wanted to breakdown, sob, because he didn’t know what he was becoming, but it was distracted by the hands sliding over his wet skin, the mouth on his shoulder, the fullness in his channel. He was owned, transformed in a way he’d never imagined. 

“You’re right. I like this,” he said. 

^^o^^

Jared awoke to a distant pounding. He felt the bed shift as Jensen got up. It took Jared a moment to realize what was happening. Someone was knocking at the door, and Jensen was answering it. 

“Fuck.” Jared sprang out of bed and pulled on his sweats. He rushed through the living room and came to a stop at the kitchen doorway. Jensen was holding the apartment door open – one hand on the door and the other on the opposite jamb. Sandy stood in the hallway with wide eyes. Her eyes shifted to Jared who was only too aware that he and Jensen were half naked at 9 a.m.

“Where have you been?” she demanded. “I’ve been calling you since yesterday morning.”

Jensen stepped back and half turned toward Jared. His eyes met Jared’s, and Jared thought he saw a message there.

“I’m sorry, I lost my phone.”

“You scared me half to death.” She rushed forward and hugged him. Jensen stood for a moment longer with his hand on the door, watching, and then swung the door shut. “I came over as soon as I got back to town,” Sandy continued.

“I’m, I’m really sorry. I should have found a land line and called you.” Jared watched Jensen put a coffee filter in the coffee maker and scoop in ground coffee. Where did he learn how to do that? Jared wondered. 

“So,” Sandy stepped back, “who’s your friend?” Jensen finished pouring water into the coffee maker and flipped the switch on. He turned with a slight smile.

“This is Jensen,” Jared said. “I was out at my family’s old ranch checking out an old burial, and we just, umm, ran into each other.”

“Really? You and your old skeletons.” She stepped forward and offered her hand. “I’m Sandy, Jared’s girlfriend. Nice to meet you.”

Jensen took her hand and smiled like a shark. “Likewise.”

Sandy turned back to Jared. “Honey, can I talk to you.” She walked past him into the bedroom without another word.”

Jensen just looked at him with slightly raised eyebrows. Jared took a deep breath and followed Sandy. When he entered the bedroom, he found her staring at the rumpled bed. She turned on him with eyes flashing. 

“Did he sleep here? Did you ...” She stared at his face. “Oh my God, you did. You ... that’s why you didn’t call.”

“I lost my phone.”

“Oh shut up. That’s not why you didn’t call. Tell the truth. How long have you known him? How long have you been fucking him?”

“That’s none of your business,” Jensen said from behind him. He was leaning in the doorway. 

“What? How dare you.” She advanced on Jensen. “He’s my boyfriend.”

“He quite clearly isn’t,” Jensen said.

“What?” Sandy was sputtering in anger.

“I could go into detail if you like.” Jensen’s smile was cold and menacing.

“No, stop this.” Jared grabbed Sandy’s arm, but she shook him off and moved closer to Jensen.

“Who do you think you are? You think you know him?”

Jensen grabbed her arm now, and she flinched. “Yes, I know him. I know ever inch of him – places you’ve never touched. You never would, little girl.” He took a step forward, and she retreated. Jared could see Jensen’s fingers digging into her arm. “I don’t just know him, I own him, and I’m not about to give him back to you.”

“Hey.” Jared put his hand on Jensen’s shoulder. “Stop, you don’t have to do that.”

Jensen’s eyes met Jared’s, and the vampire let go of Sandy’s arm. She turned frightened eyes on Jared, and it made his heart ache.

“Are you going to let him do that?”

“I think you better leave,” Jared said.

“What?” Her voice was small, hurt. “You want me to ... you ...” She shook her head. “Who are you?”

He put a hand on the small of her back and guided out of the apartment. He pulled the door shut behind them.

“Look, I can’t explain this, and I’m sorry. I just ... I learned some things about myself this weekend that ...” He sighed. “It just changes everything, okay? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for you to find out this way.”

“Jared, come on, we’ve known each other for years,” she pleaded. “Who is that guy? He’s scary, and you’re frightening me. He could hurt you.”

“He won’t,” Jared said. “I promise. It’s okay.”

“No, it isn’t. He owns you? What kind of possessive freak says that? Please. Come home with me for awhile. Get away from him. You’ll see I’m right.”

“No,” Jared said. “I don’t want to.”

“Jared.”

“Sandy, stop it, okay?” He needed to get her to leave. Jensen wasn’t going to leave him standing in the hall with her for long. “I want to be with him. I like the things he does to me.”

Her mouth dropped open, and her eyes went to the bite mark on his neck. “Jesus. He bit you. He fucking bit you.” She shook her head.

“Yeah, and you know what else he did? He fucked me up against the wall in the shower. He made me come without ever touching my dick.” He hated himself for saying the words, but he needed to make her see it was over. She needed to leave.

She stepped back with a gasp, and her face crumpled. “You son of a bitch. You sick son of a bitch.” She turned and ran down the hallway. 

Jared ran his hands over his face and stepped back into the kitchen. It still looked the same and the smell of coffee filled the air. Jensen set two cups on the table, and Jared dropped into a chair. 

“Oh my God, I hate myself,” Jared said.

“Don’t.” Jensen sat down across from him.

“I didn’t want to hurt her.”

“It was inevitable.”

“I didn’t want to do it that way. I didn’t want to be cruel. You pushed me into it.”

Jensen took a sip of coffee and arched an eyebrow. “Did I?”

“You would have hurt her more.”

The vampire shrugged. “Possibly. That all depended on her.”

“That’s unfair. She didn’t know what she was confronting.”

“What do you think I would have done?”

“I ... I don’t know. Honestly, I ...”

“You still think I’m the Bloody Man.”

Jared shook his head. “No.” He sighed. “I don’t know. The way you acted with her was scary.”

The corners of Jensen’s mouth twitched. “I guess I was a little possessive.”

“You think?”

“Jared, it’s better this way. She’s hurt now, but she’ll get over it. She was never right for you anyway. You would have realized it eventually and so would she. It would have been more heartbreak in the long run.”

“What are you a fortune teller too?”

Jensen laughed. “No, just a good judge of people. I know you.”

“You don’t or we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“All right, if I hadn’t acted the way I did. If I hadn’t precipitated this abrupt break up, how would you have handled it? How long would it have taken you to do it nicely?”

Jared took a drink of coffee and shook his head. “I don’t know, but I wouldn’t have hurt her that way.”

“You would have tried not to, but would she have just accepted it? How long have you courted her? How serious was this? Did she think you were going to marry her?” Jensen’s hand lay on Jared’s arm. “A woman in that position doesn’t just give up, not without very good reason. Not unless there’s no alternative.”

Jared suddenly stiffened and then his forehead fell forward onto the table with a thump. “She’s probably pouring it out to my mother right now.”

^^o^^


	3. Chapter 3

1865

It was finally over. Six years after its ignoble beginning, blood stained the ground of both North and South – the blood of strangers and brothers alike, slave and free, wealthy and poor. A burnt swath cut through the South like a wound that would never completely heal. Some fortunate families would welcome home often broken, changed men, but many would never know where the bodies of their loved ones lay – in what festering battlefield, primitive field hospital or horrific prison camp their lives came to lingering or abrupt end.

Jensen figured himself for one of the lucky ones. He’d survived; half starved and world weary, but alive. He’d known when state leaders failed to follow the good sense of Sam Houston and adopted the Ordinance of Secession that he’d have to join with some of his North Texas neighbors and oppose the majority of his fellow Texans. If he didn’t, conscription would force him to fight for the Confederacy, and he’d be damned if he’d fight the rich man’s war, in which those owning 15 or more slaves were exempt. He’d smiled bitterly at the irony of that. So, he’d joined up with the 1st Texas Cavalry and fought with the Union. 

Now, four years later, he was dragging ass back home, hoping that he still had a home and family. Texas had been largely spared the devastation that befell much of the Deep South, but that didn’t mean that his home – the home of a traitor as Confederates would brand him – would have been spared. He’d left two boys, not yet in their teens, an infant daughter, and one tough wife behind, but those who preyed on families left behind by soldiers could be merciless. So, it was with hope and dread that Jensen rode back to Texas. 

He was a deserter of sorts. His regiment had been mustered back to Texas, but like many others, Jensen had disappeared in the night. With the war over, they wanted nothing more than to put it behind them, and every exhausted hoof fall did just that. He was so fatigued himself that his head was nearly touching his horse’s neck, when just outside Natchitoches, Louisiana a cabin came into view. He’d been avoiding towns, following animal trails and creek beds, and finding a dwelling here with no other sign of habitation took him by surprise. He rode up almost to the modest porch and ‘helloed’ the house.

“Anybody home?” he called. His voice was almost unrecognizable to him and his throat ached. “Hello?”

The door creaked open then and a woman stepped out onto the porch. Her hair was raven-wing black and her eyes an icy blue. She wore a dress made of flour sacks, but it didn’t hide the figure beneath.

She smiled. “Well, hello, soldier. You look tired.”

“That I am, ma’am.”

“Tie your horse there and come in for supper,” she said. “I’ve got a stew on. Not much but vegetables, but it’s filling.”

Jensen’s mouth watered at the thought. He slid off his horse and tied it to a low-hanging branch. He held out his hand as he climbed the porch steps.

“Jensen Ackles, ma’am. I do appreciate your hospitality.”

“Miriam,” she said taking his hand. Hers was soft and pale, not what Jensen would have expected from a woman living in the woods as she did without servants. For certainly, this poor abode didn’t hold slaves.

He followed her indoors, where the one open room was filled with simple, utilitarian furniture with the exception of an ornate brass bed. She swung a pot out from over the fire and filled two bowls with steaming stew. She cut corn bread from an iron skillet as well and put them all on the table. Realizing she was setting just two places, Jensen looked up in surprise.

“Are you alone here?”

“I have a brother, but he’s gone to town,” she smiled. “Sit. Eat.”

“Thank you,” he said with furrowed brow. “Aren’t you … I mean, it could be dangerous for a woman alone to invite a strange man in. It isn’t proper.” He couldn’t help but think of his own wife, Alta, with her auburn hair and fierce temper. How he missed the feel over under his hands.

Miriam shrugged. “I can take care of myself.”

“Do you carry a pistol in your pocket?”

She smiled. “Perhaps.” She served him a piece of bread. “There’s blackberry jam or sorghum, but I’m afraid there’s no butter.”

He shook his head. “A starving man doesn’t want for butter.”

Jensen ate two bowls of stew and three pieces of cornbread and would have eaten more, but he thought it rude to eat this woman out of house and home when she’d offered him hospitality. With his stomach full, he felt sleepy and the dusk was settling over the small cabin. Jensen leaned on the table thinking he should take his horse and find somewhere to bed down. He watched uncomprehendingly as Miriam set a washtub in front of the fire and filled it with water.

“Why don’t you bathe, and I’ll take care of your horse for you,” she said.

“No.” He snapped out of his reverie. “I need to find a place to bed down for the night.”

“You can bed down here,” she said. “Why sleep in the woods when you can have a roof over your head?” She handed him a clean nightshirt. 

“I …”

“I insist. It’s the least I can do for a man who helped preserve the Union.” With that she slipped out the front door.

He hadn’t mentioned he was a Union soldier. He was tired, but he was pretty sure of that. He’d gone to some trouble to lose any sign of his Union status before headed back toward Texas. No matter, he thought, at least she apparently thought he was on the right side.

He stepped into the small tub and began to scrub the sweat and road dirt from his skin. By the time he got to his knees the water looked muddy. It felt good to feel half-way clean. He stepped out and began to dry, running the cloth roughly over his hair and skin, thinking of Alta and how she would help him bathe, talking to him and handing him soap and wash cloths. How she’d be there for him to lay with when he was dry, and he almost thought he was imagining it when arms slid around his waist and soft breasts and stomach pressed against his back.

He started and spun around, but Miriam just let him turn in her embrace. He staggered back into the table, and she moved with him. She was pale and lovely in the flickering lamp light.

“I, Miriam,” he said hoarsely. “I have a wife.”

“And I have a brother, but neither of them are here now.” She pressed herself to him, and he couldn’t help the arousal that overtook him. It had been a long time since he’d had a woman – a year ago, after a bloody battle. It had somehow been life affirming, but even then it had been urgent and guilt riddled. 

Miriam pulled his face down and kissed him. “You need care. I can see it. You need to feel life and touch. You’ve seen too much death. I know. Let me help you.”

His eyes burned and his arms went around her. He kissed her this time, long and insistent. She led him to the bed and pulled him down on top of her, opening her legs, urging him inside. She was warm and comforting as he sank into her, and he groaned. His body was on fire as he sucked a dusky nipple into his mouth, teasing and worrying it, she gasped. 

He rolled his hips into her molten heat, and she dug her nails into his shoulders as her legs wrapped around his waist.

“Deeper,” she moaned. “Faster.” And he did, he began to pound into her with the need and desperation of man with nothing to lose but everything. His breath was harsh in his ears, and she moaned in urgency. And this … this … an overwhelming need and he was lost to it, her heat lighting a fire that was about to consume him, her nails now dragging down his sides, and a sharply blossoming pain in his throat. And it started there – the rattling buzz of electricity from her mouth to his groin. He came with the power of bullet from a rifle, and the shot knocked a cry from him and his body, which convulsed driving him deeper inside her. She clung to him, and he could hear obscene wet noises where her mouth was latched to his throat.

Suddenly, strong hands were pulling him off her and forcing him onto his back. A man straddled him. He had the same blue eyes and dark hair. The brother, Jensen thought, I am a dead man. Jensen was bewildered when the man smiled.

“What a pretty one, Miri,” he said.

“Isn’t he? I saved enough for you, James.”

“Oil,” he said to his sister before he struck like a snake, biting down where his sister had before. Jensen struggled, but the same white heat engulfed him wiping out the pain and sending fire crackling through his veins like the blue flames along an oak branch. Jensen heard himself moaning, felt his body writhing beneath the other man, but he had no control of himself. Even when he recognized that fingers were pushing into his body, twisting and pumping, much as his mind shied from it, his body responded with need.   
As quickly as the teeth had sunk into him, they left, and he was being rolled onto his stomach. One leg was pulled up, and the blunt head of the man’s cock was being pushed into him. Even as he cried out against the intrusion, his body pushed back driving the burn and ache deeper into himself. His mind was at war with his body. He didn’t want this. He couldn’t – to be taken like this by another man – accept that his body was demanding it. He could hear himself begging, please, please, like a whore. His cock was aching and drooling as the other man’s dick pounded into something, some spot inside him that made his cock twitch and pressure built within him with each thrust. His hands clutched at the sheets, and he could feel the tension in his balls. He couldn’t fight it much as his mind tried, it was like a crack of lightning striking a tree, shooting to its heart, blowing it apart from the inside, bursting it into flame. He screamed as come spurted onto the sheets and his chest. His muscles clenched around the thick length inside him, which was pushing increasingly painful jets of semen from his cock. He bit down on his own arm to keep from crying out again.

Jensen went completely limp in the other man’s arms, but he was only too aware of the cock pounding into his ass and drawing whimpers from his body as it rubbed over that now painful spot. He was being raped, and his body had never felt such pleasure. He was humiliated and confused. He opened his eyes as James drove deep inside him, and he was filled with other man’s seed. Miriam was smiling a bloody, toothy smile at him, and he realized what they were.

James stopped moving but didn’t pull out. He nuzzled Jensen’s neck, licked at the wound they’d made. Jensen wanted to push him off, but he was tired, weak.

Miriam smiled beatifically at the brother.

“He’s beautiful, isn’t he? Can we keep him.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” James ran his fingers through the come on Jensen chest and smeared it over his skin. “But you know we’d end up fighting over him.”

“Hmm, I suppose you’re right, but if we don’t turn him, he’ll die – there’s barely enough to keep his heart pumping now – and that would be a shame.” Her fingers trailed over Jensen’s cheek and along his arm. “Look, he bit himself.” She took his wrist and turned his forearm so James could see. “Already a biter.”

“Indeed.”

^^o^^

Present

Jared thought that talking to his mother would be the worst of it. So he put it off with the excuse that there were other things he had to do. They needed to get Jensen some clothes, and Jared had to get a cell phone. He was almost out of food as well, and the longer he avoided talking to his mother, honestly, the better. 

Jared took Jensen to the mall, which he loathed. It was loud and bright and common. 

“Really? Common?” Jared said. “Yeah, I guess so. It’s beneath you? Is that what you’re saying?”

Jensen smirked. “It’s beneath …” He waved his hand as he tried to think of a proper level of social status. “A piano player.” 

“Right, yeah, I can see that,” Jared deadpanned. “But, you know, it has everything we need in one place.”

They were buying him jeans and such for now, just so he’d have something that fit. He couldn’t keep wearing Jared’s too-long jeans. Shopping for Jensen wasn’t difficult except they constantly had store clerks stalking them. 

“These dressing rooms would be lovely for a quick assignation,” Jensen had whispered at one point.

“Leave the clerks alone,” Jared said while handing him another pair of jeans to try on.

“Who’s talking about the clerks?”

“You’d think at your age you’d have learned a little patience.”

Jensen chuckled and went into the dressing room alone.

They bought two pair of jeans there and went into the next store, Eventown, which had a weird tropical/hip thing going but was strangely dim with dark wood and flat black ceiling. There was no way to pick out clothes when you couldn’t properly see.

“Forget it,” Jared said. “Let’s go.”

But Jensen wasn’t with him, he realized. He was already half-way across the store.

“Damn it.” He took off after the vampire who was now talking to a pretty blond clerk. 

“You know what, you would look awesome in this shirt,” she said pulling a black on black patterned shirt off a rack on the wall. “You’ve gotta be an double-X with those shoulders, right?”

“Hey,” Jared said, and Jensen turned him with a smile, eyes half lidded. The vampire’s return of ‘hey’ came out husky.

The clerk only faltered for a moment, “But what’s important is that your boyfriend likes it, right?”

Jared sputtered, but Jensen gave her a blinding smile. “Absolutely. Why don’t I try it on for him.”

“Great,” she chirped. “The dressing rooms are right over there.”

“Thank you for all your help,” Jensen said as he took Jared’s elbow and steered him toward the back of the store. He slipped into one of the cubicles leaving Jared holding his shopping bags like … well, a boyfriend.

“Jared.”

“What?”

“Come here.”

“What?”

“Come here.” Jared approached the dressing room door cautiously. It was open just a few inches, and he leaned toward it. “Come. Here.” The door suddenly opened, and he was jerked inside. Jensen shoved him into the corner and pushed the door quietly shut. 

“What the fuck are you …” 

Jensen’s mouth covered his as a hand cupped the back of Jared’s head and maneuvered it into a more receptive position.

“Jensen, damn it, not here. You have no idea how much trouble we could get into.”

“Mmm.” His mouth was on Jared’s throat. “No one saw.”

“That girl saw us come in.”

The vibration of Jensen’s laugh against his skin made Jared shiver. “She doesn’t care.” 

“What? Of course, she …”

Jensen kissed him again. “She’s probably fantasizing about it right now.”

Jared felt his jeans sliding down his thighs and realized Jensen had been distracting him. He tried to grab them, but Jensen was already pulling his shorts down as well. He got them around Jared’s ankles and pushed Jared into sitting on the little corner bench as he dropped to his knees.

“Jensen,” Jared hissed.

“Hmm?” Jensen licked up the seam of Jared’s balls.

“Jesus.”

“Shhh.” Jensen suckled at one and then the other, and Jared watched, mesmerized. The sight of those plush lips and the thought of those razor sharp teeth on his nuts made Jared feel like jumping out of skin. Hungry green eyes met his for a moment before Jensen turned his head and kissed the inside of Jared’s thigh. Jensen sucked hard at the skin bringing blood to the surface, and then he sank his teeth into the soft, pale skin of Jared’s thigh. Jared sucked in a breath, and his dick went rock hard, because the bite so close to his groin this time had him leaking precome in seconds. He could feel it, whatever it was, spreading through his veins, down his leg, into his groin and stomach.

Jensen suckled greedily and palmed Jared’s balls, rolling and kneading them, and Jared felt giddy – as though he would burst out laughing at the insanity of his situation – and as turned on as he’d ever been. Without thinking he grabbed Jensen’s hair and pulled his mouth away from his leg and pushed it toward his cock. Jensen smiled and his teeth were red with blood, but without hesitation, he took Jared’s cock in his mouth and swallowed it. 

Jared almost choked on his own spit as he watched with disbelief. When Jensen’s nose was buried in the coarse hair at the base, he looked up at Jared with a wicked glint in his eyes. He dropped his long lashes before pulling back to the head, his hand wrapping around the shaft and following his lips. Jensen’s thumb was pressing down and rubbing the wound on his Jared’s leg and it made him squirm. Jared bit back a groan as Jensen swirled his tongue over the crown and into the slit. 

It wasn’t long and Jared was shaking and biting his fist to keep from moaning aloud. The stuff in his veins had spread to his toes and fingertips and scalp like sorghum and Everclear. He laughed in his head thinking that if he lit a match right now he might ignite and leave nothing but a caramelized mess. He looked down and Jensen was staring up at him. His lips were red and puffy, stretched around Jared’s dick, and Jensen’s thumb dug into the bite mark on his thigh sending a jolt through him like it was tugging on his veins. Jared grunted and came shooting into Jensen’s throat, and Jared realized somewhere between almost bucking himself off the bench and his vision blacking out, that he was tugging Jensen’s mouth down on his cock by his hair.

He let go, and Jensen let Jared’s cock slide out of his mouth. There was come trickling down his chin. He caught it with his finger and licked it off. Jared stroked his cheek, and Jensen licked his lips. Jared jumped and Jensen grinned when there was a frantic but quiet knock on the dressing room door. 

“You guys, my manager is on her way back from Starbucks. Hurry.” Footsteps retreated.

They both got up, and Jared tucked back in and zipped his pants. Jensen still looked like the cat who drank the cream, and Jared grabbed his chin and kissed him. Jared didn’t know what he’d gotten himself into, but he knew he wasn’t going to just get out of it no matter what he’d thought before. He wasn’t sure he even wanted to.

Things were less eventful at the phone store, but between the sales girl and Jensen, he’d ended up buying two iPhones – one for himself and one for Jensen because … what they might get separated? Well, he did have to go back to class after the holidays, right? Good thing his grandfather had left him some money when he died. Vampires were expensive pets. Jared laughed.

“What?” Jensen said.

“Nothing.”

Grocery shopping really was uneventful, but Jared bought twice the food he normally would because Jensen was amazed at all the things that were available. He was even putting things in the cart when Jared wasn’t looking. So Jared was surprised to at the check out lane and find that he’d bought both Dos Equis and Red Stripe, peaches, foccacia bread, pretzels, cumquats, and a hunk of cheese with a name he couldn’t pronounce. 

“Can I drive now?” Jensen asked as the walked to the truck.

“No,” Jared said in exasperation.

“Why?”

“Seriously? Are you just trying to wear me down? I told you this morning, you have to have a drivers license.” He started putting bags in the back seat of the crew cab.  
“How do I get one?” 

“You have to get a learners permit first, so you can practice.”

“And how do I get one of those?”

“You can’t.”

“What? Why?”

“Because you’d have to have some I.D. – a birth certificate, Social Security card, something like that – and you don’t. You don’t exist in this century, Jensen.”

They climbed in the truck, and Jared could almost swear Jensen was pouting … or plotting. He merged onto the highway, and didn’t pay much attention when Jensen reached in the backseat and rummaged around in the groceries. It wasn’t until he glanced over and saw Jensen pop a grape in his mouth that he just about swerved off the highway.

“I think I should drive,” Jensen said.

“You … you’re …”

Jensen threw his head back and guffawed. “You do,” he laughed. He bent nearly double with laughter. “Oh my God, I thought you might.” He wiped his eyes and straightened up. “You think I survive on the little blood I’ve gotten from you over the past day or so? You’ve been asleep a lot, and you didn’t eat all the food that disappeared from the refrigerator.”

“You eat? Vampires don’t eat.” It was the first time Jared had said the word aloud, and something in the air changed.

Jensen pushed Jared’s hair back from his face and he smiled. “We need to talk.”

Yeah, we do, Jared thought, but first, I really have to talk to my mother.

^^o^^  
“Sandy was frantic,” Sharon Padalecki said loud and clear over his new iPhone.

“I’m sorry, I lost my phone. I just got a new one,” he said. He was in the kitchen as far as he could get from Jensen who was watching TV in the bedroom. He wasn’t sure that meant the vampire couldn’t hear him, but maybe he’d have the good manners not to eavesdrop.

“That’s no excuse. That’s what I told Sandy too.”

“Yeah, thanks for that.”

“What? Listen here, young man, Sandy loves you, and she was heartbroken.”

He put his head in his hand. “I know, mom.” He felt the sudden urge to cry. “I know, I didn’t mean to hurt her. Everything just happened so fast, and I did lose my phone, and I didn’t expect her to show up here like that. And, and …”

“And find you with a man? That’s what she said. Is that true?”

He sighed. “Yes.”

He heard her sigh, but she didn’t say anything.

“Mama, I didn’t know. It just …” 

“Jared, you know I love you no matter what, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Sandy was devastated, and I’m worried about you.”

“Mama, this is … it’s confusing. I’ve never felt like this before about a guy or anyone, actually.”

“That’s why I’m concerned, honey. You just met this, what’s his name?”

“Jensen.”

“You just met him, and you went and broke up with Sandy. You hurt her, and that isn’t like you. I don’t know if everything she said was true, but if it is you should be ashamed of what you said to her.”

“Mama…”

“She said, he frightened her.”

“Shit, he … Sandy was angry, rightfully so, but she was angry and got in his face, and he didn’t handle it well. You know, he wasn’t expecting to be confronted by a pissed off girlfriend either, but she’s overreacting, Mama, honestly.”

There was a long pause, and he knew she had her jaw clenched. He could almost count the beats until she would relax enough to continue. “Okay, so when can I meet him?”

“Oh, jeez, give us a few days, okay? This is all pretty new.”

“Jared, if he isn’t good enough for your family, he isn’t good enough for you. Or is it we aren’t good enough?”

“Stop it. It isn’t like that.” God, you don’t know how not like that it is, he thought. “We’re just getting to know one another.”

“And yet, he spent the night with you.”

Jared felt himself flush. “Mama.”

“All right, well keep in touch. I love you.”

“I love you too, Mama.”

^^o^^


	4. Chapter 4

Four

Jared ran a hand through his hair and stared down at his phone. Well, that had gone well. Guilt lay in his stomach like rock. Not only had he made Sandy look like she was hysterical, he’d essentially lied to his mama. My God, it was unbelievable how his fascination with family lore and old bones had led him here, he thought. He was still teetering on the edge of thinking he’d lost his mind. Maybe Jensen was just some blood obsessed lunatic. A part of Jared really, really wanted to believe it – just one of those goth freaks that pretended to be a modern-day Dracula – but that didn’t explain the grave, and it didn’t explain the way Jared felt when Jensen bit him. 

Jared let his forehead drop onto the table with a thunk. What the fuck was he going to do? If he told Jensen to leave him alone, would he? Did he even want him to? Right now, thinking of Jensen lying on his bed … Jared started as his phone vibrated in his hand. He sat up as it dinged. It was a text message from Jensen: Come here. Jared snorted and replied: You come here. He put his head back on the table but knew somehow when Jensen leaned in the kitchen doorway.

“How did it go?” Jensen asked.

Jared rolled his head back and forth without lifting it from the table. “You didn’t hear?”

“I was reading the manual for the phone.” He heard Jensen move around behind him, the sounds of cabinet doors closing, and the faucet running. Moments later he heard gurgling and the smell of coffee brewing filled the kitchen. 

Jensen sat down to Jared’s right and petted his hair. “Was it that bad?”

Jared sighed and sat up. “No, I just … I lied to my mama.”

Jensen’s lips quirked into a small smile. “That’s sweet.”

“Dude, if you don’t make her love you, you’re out of here.” Jared had meant it as a joke, but it didn’t come out like one. Jensen looked very serious.

“I’ll remember that.”

“Yeah.” Jared dropped his eyes. “Yeah, you better,” he said remembering Jensen’s grip on Sandy’s arm.

Jensen got up and poured coffee. He set a cup in front of Jared with just the right amount of milk. Of course, Jensen had seen Jared drink coffee before, maybe even poured it for him, but damn if the guy didn’t have an eye for detail. Jensen sat back down with a cup of black coffee in front of him, and Jared wondered why he hadn’t questioned it before when he saw the vampire drink coffee or whiskey.

“So, you eat.”

“I do,” Jensen said. “You know, when you were sleeping the other night, I watched part of a movie with this actor Christopher Lee …”

Jared erupted in laughter. He had to grab a napkin to catch the coffee that came out his nose. “Oh my God, you can’t think …” He began laughing again.

“Clearly, what’s on TV isn’t always real, but it represented what people think about vampires, didn’t it? The basic myth.”

Jared wiped his eyes. “Yeah, I mean, I guess so. There are similar elements to most vampire stories.”

“Then why didn’t you question how I could go out during the day?”

“Well, that one’s not written in stone, but I’ve never heard of a vampire eating. I mean even in the original Dracula, he doesn’t even drink wine. So, I don’t get it … when I called it lunch, you didn’t correct me.”

“I thought you were being figurative.” Jensen shrugged. 

“If it isn’t sustenance, then what is it?”

“Like a drug, I suppose.”

“An addiction.”

Jensen just tipped his head.

“Like someone who can’t stop drinking booze or smoking opium.”

“Perhaps, but it does more than get me high.”

“Yeah, of course, wow.” Jared was silent for a moment. “So could you starve to death?”

Jensen shivered. “I’d rather not know. I can go longer without food than you, and hunger doesn’t bother me as much. But in the end, I fear that starving would be much like being drained of blood. I wouldn’t be dead, but I’d hardly call it living. It would be hell – a living corpse.”

Without thinking, Jared traced the back of Jensen’s hand with his fingertip. “Jensen, how old were you, you know, when you died?”

Jensen’s gaze flicked up from where Jared’s finger touched him to Jared’s eyes. The muscles around his mouth tightened, and Jared didn’t think he was going to answer. “Twenty-nine.”

“And you … did you have a family?”

Jensen nodded. “A wife and three children.” He smiled ruefully. “I came back from the war a changed man.” 

“How did it happen?”

Jensen sighed and rubbed a hand over his eyes. “I wasn’t given a choice. I wasn’t even seduced.” He held Jared’s gaze until the young man looked away. “I was taken, and turned, and left to fate – hungry, angry, grieving – my life was stolen from me.”

“Then why would you ask me to do it?”

“Because it didn’t have to be that way and because I’m selfish.” He ran his fingers along Jared’s jaw. 

Jared blinked and pulled away from the touch. “If you’d had a choice, would you have done it?”

Jensen shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe not, I had a family that needed me. But after what they did to me … I might have.”

“There were two?”

“A brother and sister. He …” Jensen shook his head. “What other elements are there to this myth?”

“Crosses, holy water …”

“Oh yes, silly. Religion has nothing to do with it.”

“Yeah, I kind of suspected that.”

Jensen looked quizzically at Jared. “You aren’t religious.”

Jared shrugged. “Don’t tell my mama, okay?”

Jensen smiled. “You’re secret is safe with me.”

^^o^^  
This was such a bad idea, Jared thought. He couldn’t imagine why he’d agreed to it, except he couldn’t think of a good way to say no. Jensen was right, they couldn’t just stay in the apartment all the time, but this – night and alcohol and music and everyone on the prowl – it couldn’t be a good mixture with a newly risen vampire.

Jared paid the cover charge, and they got their hands stamped, which from Jensen’s expression seemed to somehow annoy him. They pushed their way into the club. Lights flashed, music pounded and bodies seemed to move in some strange dreamlike synchronicity. Jared turned to Jensen, “Don’t forget the rules.” Jensen just grinned and nodded. Such a bad idea, Jared thought.

They’d been sitting on the sofa nursing beers and flipping channels when Jensen asked, “So what do people do for fun?”

“Fun?”

“Well, surely they don’t just sit around watching TV all the time.”

Beer almost came out Jared’s nose when he snorted in laughter. Jared really needed to stop drinking anything around Jensen. “You’d be surprised.”

“Really?” Jensen’s eyes glittered in amusement at Jared’s sputtering reaction.

“Yeah, there’s even a name for it – couch potato.”

“Indeed. Well, we don’t want to become vegetables, do we?”

Jared’s laughter continued. “No, absolutely not.”

“So let’s go do something.”

“We could, umm, go to the movies.”

Jensen’s brows pulled down. “There are movies on TV. Don’t people go somewhere to socialize, drink, dance …”

Jared quit amusement was replaced by wariness. “Like a bar?”

“Yes, or a dance hall.”

“A club … sure, but I don’t think you’d like the music.”

“Rock n’ roll?”

“Yes, or well, other stuff too … but, yeah, really loud, and …”

“We won’t know until you take me, will we?” Jensen stood and offered Jared his hand.

That was not more than an hour ago, a change of clothes, a brief drive, and a two important rules.

“Okay, listen you have two rules,” Jared said as he turned off the truck.

Jensen raised an eyebrow at him. “Indeed?”

“Seriously.” Jared turned toward him, and in the dimness of the truck interior, Jensen’s eyes still sparkled, and his lips looked so soft. Jared kind of wished they had stayed at the apartment.

“All right, what are your rules?” the vampire asked with a smile that said, I know what you’re thinking.

“You stay with me. No wandering off on your own.”

“And?”

“No biting anyone.”

“Even you?”

“Jensen.”

“Agreed.”

Jared leaned forward then, pulled the other man toward him, and kissed him. Jensen leaned into it, but let Jared take control. Jared flicked his tongue out briefly, tasting Jensen’s lips, and then broke the kiss only to dive back and pull Jensen’s bottom lip between his teeth and suck. Jensen made a small moan deep in his throat, and Jared released him. He let his forehead fall against Jensen’s. 

“Jesus.” His fingers massaged the back of Jensen’s neck. 

“Jared.”

“Hmm?”  
“Are we getting out?”

“Yes, yeah, otherwise I’m going to do something that will get us arrested.”

“Then, maybe …”

“No.” Jared sat up and slid back behind the wheel. “I really don’t want to explain that to my mama.”

Now, walking through the crowded bar, Jared could feel Jensen’s hand pressed between his shoulder blades; not pushing, just a presence that said, I’m with you. Jared smiled at the bartender. He smiled at everyone because he was a friendly guy, but the bartender was kind of hot – nice smile and hot body. Jared’s brain just tripped all over itself because, shit, he did not look at guys like that. He didn’t, hadn’t. Fuck.

“What can I get you?” The bartender leaned forward, maybe to hear Jared over the music. He licked his lips. Maybe not. Then Jensen leaned in next to Jared, and the bartender’s lips parted and he put his elbows on the bar. Such a bad idea, Jared thought again.

“Whiskey,” Jensen said.

“Yeah, two,” Jared said.

“Rocks?”

“Yeah.”

The bartender added ice to two glasses and set them on the bar. “I’m Evan.” He poured equal amounts in each glass. He pushed their glasses across the bar to them, but his eyes were on Jensen.

“I’m Jensen. This is Jared.”

“Pleasure. I’ll see ya’ll later.” He winked and turned to wait on a customer at the other end of the bar.

Jensen took a sip of whiskey and faced Jared.. “This is fun.”

“Yeah,” Jared replied. “Fun.” 

They made their way along the edge of the dance floor watching the writhing, bouncing bodies, and when Jared turned to Jensen he saw the vampire lick his lips. But when he saw Jared watching him, he smiled and leaned forward to kiss him.

Jared pulled back. “Jensen.”

“What? I’ve seen other men in here kiss each other. It’s all right, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, fuck, I, I don’t know.” Jared rubbed his fingertips in the soft bristle of hair above Jensen’s collar. “I’ve never …”

Jensen pulled him forward and kissed him chastely. 

“Aww, don’t be so shy,” the girl next to them said. She was short and her breasts were pushing up out of metallic bustier. “You two, you should be in porn. God, I could watch all night.”

“Right?” her friend with fuchsia hair said. She pointed at Jensen. “Can you imagine his lips …” 

“You’re drunk,” Jared said.

“Doesn’t make it any less true,” Bustier said. 

“Tell me about this porn,” Jensen said.

Fuchsia laughed. 

“Don’t encourage them,” Jared said against Jensen’s ear.

“Okay,” Fuchsia said waving her vodka and tonic for emphasis. “Here’s the scenario – Lips here,” she pointed at Jared.

“No,” Bustier said. “He’s Lips.” She pointed at Jensen.

“No, he’s Lashes. He’s Lips.” She pointed at Jared.

“Oh, okay that works too,” Bustier agreed. Jensen at that point was grinning at the two drunk women and even Jared’s lips were twitching into a smile. 

“So Lips comes home from work and finds Lashes in the bedroom,” Fuchsia continues. 

“And he’s been wanting it all day. Right? He’s already naked and lubed up.”

“Oh my God, wait,” said Bustier. She looked Jensen up and down. “Okay, go ahead. I was just picturing that, you know, go ahead.”

“So Lips is like ‘fuck yeah’ and starts pulling his clothes off.”

Jared felt his face go hot, and he looked down at his drink.

“Yeah, blush now,” Bustier yelled. “You weren’t blushing then.” The two girls slapped palms and fist bumped.

“Right?” Fuchsia said. “Cause he’s just like ‘get on your knees, bitch’ and man Lashes flips right over and shoves his ass in the air and Lips is on him like white on rice I mean splitting him open cause dude I bet you’re hung and Lashes can barely stay on his knees and …” 

Suddenly Jensen held up a hand and Fuchsia’s tale came to an abrupt stop. “There’s just one problem with your scenario,” the vampire said with a smile. “I was the one that got home from work and found him lubed and ready.”

Both girls mouths dropped open.

“And I fucked him through the mattress. He couldn’t walk for two days.”

Jensen grabbed Jared’s wrist and began pulling him through the club toward a dark corner by the bar. Screams of ‘awesome’ and ‘so hot’ erupted behind them. Jared was blushing furiously now. 

“Dude, what the hell?”

“We have an appointment.”

“What? No, what you just said. That never …”

Jensen threw his head back and laughed. He looked back over his shoulder at Jared and grinned. “Just having some fun.” Jensen continued pulling him toward the corner and now Jared saw Evan standing in the dark corner. He went through a door and Jensen followed him. The bartender was already four steps up a staircase when Jared and Jensen passed through the doorway.

“Close that behind you,” Evan said.

Jensen kicked the door shut and pushed Jared toward the stairs.

“What are we doing?” Jared hissed.

“You don’t know?” Jensen said.

“What?”

“Come on.” Jensen started up the stairs and Jared had no choice but to follow. They entered a small room with a bare light bulb. Boxes of beer and liquor lined two walls, and in the corner were an old couch, recliner, and coffee table. An ancient Frigidaire hummed next to the single window, which was covered with a torn and yellowing blind.   
Evan pulled his t-shirt off and tossed it on the chair. Jared’s mouth went a little dry. The man was lean with ropy muscles and tattoos across his chest and upper arms, and his nipples had barbells through them. Jensen reached out and gently rolled one between his fingers. Jensen let go of the metal, but Evan’s body moved toward Jensen as though he was tethered to it. His arms went around Jensen’s waist, and he rolled his hips against Jensen like a whore.

Jared felt himself go hot all over. He grabbed Evan’s arm and pulled him away from Jensen and against his own body. He crushed his mouth against Evan’s, and the kid groaned. Jared could feel blood running to his cock. He was gripping the kid’s upper arms and shoved his tongue into his mouth. He tasted salt and copper as his lip split on his own teeth. He was getting way too used to that taste. Jared pulled back and nipped along Evan’s jaw line and down his neck. Evan let his head fall back, and Jared sucked at the soft skin of his neck, pulling the blood to the surface. Marking him. 

Jared glanced up and met Jensen’s lust dark eyes over the kid’s shoulder. Jensen was pressed right up against Evan’s back. Jared could feel Jensen’s hands between them unbuckling Evan’s belt and opening his jeans. Jared went back to kissing and sucking at the kid’s neck as Jensen pushed his jeans down. 

Evan bucked against Jared, and Jared chuckled knowing that Jensen had a hand on the kid’s dick. Evan suddenly seemed to come to life and quickly undid Jared’s jeans and pushed them down. He dropped to his knees, and left Jared and Jensen staring at one another. Jensen grinned, but before Jared could do anything, Evan had a hand wrapped around his cock and was licking a stripe up the seam of his balls. Jared gasped and slouched back against stacked cases of rum. His eyes fell shut.

“Get on your knees,” Jensen whispered in his ear. Yeah, Jared thought, yeah, I can do that. 

Evan moved back to accommodate him, and Jared knelt and ran his fingers through Evan’s hair. As though encouraged, Evan licked the head of Jared’s cock and then sucked it into his mouth. Jesus, Jared thought, I’m getting sucked off by a guy. Why was that different? Why is that so hot? A mouth is mouth, right? But … Evan’s mouth slid down to meet the hand wrapped around the base of his cock. Jared’s head dropped back and his eyes shut.

Evan set up an almost teasing rhythm; so good but not fast enough to get Jared there, until his head suddenly moved forward fast and hard sending Jared’s cock into the back of his throat and making him gag. Jared’s eyes flew open, and he saw Jensen on his knees with his cock buried in Evan’s ass. The kid pulled off Jared’s cock.

“Yeah, now fuck my face,” he said before taking Jared’s cock back into his mouth.

Jensen smirked. “You heard what he said.” Jensen thrust his hips forward shoving Jared’s cock deep into the kid’s throat again. He took it without gagging this time. He just groaned and tipped his ass up. Jared didn’t have to move and couldn’t look away as Jensen fucked into that beautiful ass and drove Jared’s cock down the guy’s throat. Jensen’s fingers were digging into Evan’s hips, but he was watching Jared. This was so wrong and kind of sick, Jared thought, but the kid asked for it, seemed to be really turned on by it. He was making needy mewling sounds, and his hips were writhing in encouragement or pain as Jensen fucked harder and faster into him.

Jared’s balls were hard, drawing up tight, and he saw Jensen’s orgasm hit him half a second before Jared’s hit. They were filling the kid at both ends, and he was taking it; sucking and groaning. He swallowed Jared’s slick and then licked over his shaft before nearly collapsing on the floor. Jensen stood and spotting a box of tissue, used a couple to wipe his cock before tucking back in. 

“Toss that to me,” Evan said. Jensen threw the box to him, and Evan stuffed a couple into the crack of his ass before pulling up his jeans and closing his fly. “Damn, I gotta go back to work. You guys are awesome though.” He grinned at Jared who was still on the floor. “You’ll come back, right? Or you know, maybe we could make a play date. I want you to fuck me next time.”

“A play date,” Jared said. “Umm.” 

Jensen took his arm and helped him to his feet. “He gets a little dopey afterward,” Jensen said. He pulled Jared’s jeans up.

Evan laughed. “I guess he had fun then.”

“Don’t talk about me like I’m not here,” Jared said and slapped Jensen’s hands away. He tucked himself in and zipped his jeans.

“You see, he’s back now,” Jensen said. 

“Yeah, he’s adorable,” Evan chuckled. “Listen, break time’s over, guys. We have to get out of here.”

They followed Evan downstairs and parted at the bar where Evan said, ‘see ya’ll later’ with a wink. 

Cool air slapped Jared in the face when they reached the street, and he let his long legs take him to the truck in the fewest number of steps. Jensen trotted to keep up. 

“Don’t even ask if you can drive.”

“I think I already did.”

Jared stopped and glared at him. “Jesus-fucking-Christ, you are unbelievable.” Jared got in the truck and thought about not unlocking the passenger door but relented. 

“See, now that was fun. I think I like the 21st Century.”

“Shit.” Jared started the truck and whipped into traffic. “Fun. You need to learn something about condoms.”

“I know what condoms are. They aren’t a modern invention, but it’s not like I could get him pregnant.”

“Oh my God, it isn’t like they didn’t have STDs, venereal diseases?” Jared glanced sideways at Jensen. “Syphilis, gonorrhea? Ever heard of those?”

Jensen’s gaze slid away. 

“Those,” Jared said, “we have medicine that will get rid of those, but we have others now that will kill. And maybe you can’t get sick from them, but what about me? You think you couldn’t give that to me? Huh?”

Jared glanced across the cab of the truck again, and Jensen as looking down at his lap. 

“I don’t know,” Jensen said quietly. “I’m sorry. I don’t think so, but that isn’t good enough. It won’t happen again … without, you know …”

Jared didn’t reply. Outside the windows fast food joints, gas stations, and cheap motels moved past. Light rain began to fall.

“Two years after I returned from the war, there was a small pox outbreak. My whole family got sick. First, my eldest son, then my daughter, my wife and younger son. My daughter, Emma, died first.” Jensen paused. Jared looked over and saw sharp teeth denting a lush lower lip. Jared turned back to the road. “Then my older son, Ross, died. My wife, Alta, and son, Josh, survived. I remember when Alta’s fever broke, she looked up at me and said, ‘You never got sick. You never do.’”

“Shit,” Jared mumbled. 

^^o^^


	5. Chapter 5

Jared just wanted a break from Jensen. He need some time to himself. It wasn’t just Jensen. Although at that moment, it seemed to be all about Jensen. Jared had been living alone since his senior year in undergrad. He was used to time by himself – time to decompress and think. Right now, he really needed that because he’d had none since all this started.

He stomped through the apartment and into the bathroom, and of course, Jensen was right behind him. 

“Do you mind?” Jared turned and confronted the shorter man. He had a good four inches on Jensen, and this close, it seemed like six.

Jensen’s eyes went hard. He put a hand in the middle of Jared’s chest and shoved him backward. “Do you think you can intimidate me?”

Jared still felt the impact of Jensen’s hand on his chest, and he’d forgotten how Jensen had picked him up and tossed him on the bed. He put his hands up. “I just … fuck, can you give me some space? I need a little time.” Jared felt like a spring being wound tighter and tighter.

“For what?” Jensen asked and took a step closer, and that look – head tipped down, eyes dilated, jaw clenched – Jared’s lizard brain was saying flee, but he wasn’t going to be the gazelle in this Animal Planet moment.

“To myself. To think.” Jared was just winding up tighter with every moment.

“About what?” Jensen was just inches from him now.

Snap. “About how you’re fucking me up,” Jared shouted and stepped away. “About what you’re turning me into. Fuck, what we did tonight … I don’t do that kind of stuff.” He ran his hands up through his hair, stopped, clenching his fists, feeling the pull against his scalp. “My God, Jensen, I don’t even fuck guys. Do you not get it? This with you was hard enough, but tonight … I don’t do that kind of thing with women even. I had a girlfriend. I was probably going to marry Sandy, and now you’ve got me having threesomes in a storage room with some anonymous guy. Jesus, that was …” He dropped his hands. The look in Jensen’s eyes as he fucked into Evan’s ass flashed in Jared’s mind.

A smirk pulled at the corner of Jensen’s mouth, but he dropped it. He took Jared’s face in his hands. “I’m sorry. This is all too fast for you.” He pulled Jared into a brief kiss and nuzzled his throat, but he didn’t bite. He didn’t even kiss the sensitive skin there, but Jared tipped his head back in response. 

^^o^^  
1866

Jensen lay awake next to his wife. He hadn’t slept much in the weeks since he’d returned. He suspected that he didn’t need to sleep at all, but it was a habit and an escape from the thoughts in his head. He rolled toward Alta and put his arm around her. They’d had sex, but he knew he hadn’t given her the tenderness and warmth she needed. He couldn’t. She thought it was because of the war, but he knew different. It was what he’d become. He was filled with anger and that wicked hunger that made him want to bite and bleed her. He pressed his nose against the back of her neck and breathed in the warm, animal sent of her. The closed seam of his lips was against her neck, and his heart was thudding in his chest.

He got up and pulled on his trousers and boots. He let himself out of the house as quietly as possible and headed for the small cabin out back. He let himself in, and there was a flurry of movement on the small bed at the sound of the door opening. Jensen saw the flicker of moonlight off a blade and grabbed the farmhand’s wrist. He shoved him down on the bed and sank his teeth into the other man’s neck. The blade clattered to the floor.

“Agh, Jen, fuck.”

Jensen let up for a moment. “Later,” he said, and put his mouth back to the wound. The first wash of blood in his mouth was strong wine and a woman’s mouth full of promise and pleasure, and it ran down his throat, into his body, it was bourbon and mota and coca, but more. So much more. It was light and air and water. It was life.

He pulled his mouth away from the other man’s throat and flipped him over. He ran his finger along the farmhand’s crack. Slick.

“Ready for me, huh?” He growled in the man’s ear. He felt the movement of a nod. It was good. He knew it was better for both of them, but a part of him, the cruel, angry part, wanted to take him the way he had the first time – dry and bloody and screaming. He pushed into the tight, heat, and the other man moaned.

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Whore.” Jensen bit into the man’s shoulder and began driving his cock into him deep and fast. The iron bed was rattling under them and banging into the wall. Jensen kept pounding, his hips slamming into the guy’s ass hard enough to bruise. His fingers dug into his shoulder and hip. “I’m going to come in you, whore, fill you up. You want that?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Jensen growled, hating the other man for wanting this, for liking it. “Cock sucking slut.”

The farmhand’s anus clenched around Jensen’s dick and the man cried out. His body went rigid, and Jensen could hear him panting. The muscles clamped down on his cock again and Jensen was shooting come into the other man. He slammed hard into gripping channel and held the man there. Jensen groaned – nothing more – as he spilled his shame into the farmhand’s body.

^^o^^  
Jensen dropped his hands from Jared’s face and walked back into the bedroom. Jared just stood in the middle of the bathroom for a moment. He felt drained, completely done in. He ran a hand through his hair and shook himself before stripping off his shirt and kicking his shoes into the corner. He left his jeans bunched up on the floor, which wasn’t like him. He wasn’t a neat freak, but he wasn’t a slob either. His mama had always taught him to take care of his things, but he just couldn’t be bothered tonight. Of course, she’d also taught him that if he ever wanted to have a woman in his life, he’d better learn to pick up after himself. 

“Fuck,” he said to his reflection. He picked up his toothbrush and smeared toothpaste on it. The taste seemed foreign in his mouth and looked at the tube to see if it was what he always used – as though it could be something else. Maybe Jensen had picked up something different at the store, but no, it was the same old Crest. Then he remembered the taste of blood in his mouth earlier, how normal it had been. He stopped brushing and leaned on the counter. He stared at himself for a moment; spit and rinsed.   
He looked again – same shaggy hair, hazel eyes. He bared his teeth, white and even. He thought of Jensen’s scraping along his skin, sinking in. He shivered and tipped his head back. There wasn’t a mark on his neck. How was that possible? He pressed his fingers to his throat and felt his pulse throbbing just under the skin. His cock was half hard in his boxers.

“Jesus.” He pushed his shorts off and stepped into the shower. He turned the spray as cold as it would go and didn’t get out until his cock was soft and his balls were trying to climb up into his abdominal cavity. He dried off and pulled on clean boxers before heading into the bedroom and found Jensen in his bed. 

He was on the far side of the bed with his eyes closed, but Jared didn’t know if the vampire was asleep or if he slept at all. He didn’t want to wake him if he was. He didn’t want to talk. Jared found himself staring at him because he’d never had an opportunity to just look at him. He was beautiful. Jared knew that, of course, but had somehow suspected that it was a largely result of his personality, his power. But, no, he was simply beautiful from the long lashes curled against his cheeks to the full, red lips. Even the golden splatter of freckles across his shoulders made Jared want to bend down and follow their path with his mouth.

Jared let out a shuddering breath as he felt his cock begin to reawaken. He turned off the light and got under the covers. He felt Jensen shift in his sleep. A hand brushed across his stomach and then jerked back.

“You’re like ice,” Jensen said.

“I took a shower.”

“Hmm.” Jensen’s hand was now on Jared’s waist, and he wrapped himself around Jared’s body with his face pressed into the curve of Jared’s neck. “You should be warm.”

“You sleep.”

“Yes, a little.”

“Okay.”

Jensen tipped his face up. “Jared.” He paused and took a deep breath. “I’ll leave, if that’s what you want.”

“I … I don’t know.”

Jensen nodded.

^^o^^  
1880

As Jensen approached the house he saw that lamplight flickered in the kitchen. Alta was already up. Jensen wondered what time it was. The sun wasn’t yet rising. With a sigh, he crossed the porch and entered. He was greeted by the smell of coffee and silence from his wife.

“You’re up early,” he said.

“You were up earlier,” she replied without turning from the mending she was doing at the table.

“I couldn’t sleep,” he said as he poured coffee.

“You never sleep.”

Jensen didn’t correct her. He rubbed his eyes and sat down in the chair by the fire.

“Where were you?” Her voice was even, but the accusation was there.

“I went for a walk.”

“Jensen …”

“Let it go,” he growled. 

She put the mending down then and looked at him. “Who is she?”

“There is no she. Just stop it.”

“Then where do you go at night?”

He got up and set the cup on the table. He dropped to his knees by her chair and took her hands in his. “I know I’m not the man you married or the man who left for the war. I can’t be. I wish I could, but I’m trying to do right by you and Josh. I am, just please, stop questioning me. I can’t change this. Please, believe me when I tell you I love you.”

“I know. I know you do,” her voice quavered. “But, Jen, when I go in town, people don’t look me in the eye anymore. They whisper behind my back. What is it? I have a right to know.”

He stared at the intertwined fingers and shook his head. “Don’t. Please, just …”

“I heard Mary Jessup tell Sonja Peterson that you ruined the Andrews’ eldest girl. That she died of shame.”

Jensen closed his eyes and pushed down the rage pooling in his gut. His fingers closed tighter around hers, and his veins began to vibrate like hollow reeds in the winter wind. Her fingers were hot and dry, and he could feel blood rushing through the web of capillaries in her hands. 

“And last week, Prattle refused to sell me the nails that we needed for the fence,” she said. “When I asked him why, he said I should ask the monster I’m married to.”

His tongue was like sandpaper and his teeth the sharp edge of a tin can. He clenched his jaw. The rage was caustic, eating through his guts and seeping into his veins. He dragged the thick night air into his lungs, and he needed.

“Jen, I know you aren’t a monster.”

“But I am.” He looked up at her, and her eyes went wide. He yanked her onto the floor, and she let out one cry before he sank his teeth in her throat. The blood was intoxicating. It burned like whiskey in parched throat and exploded in his guts. It warmed him, aroused him. He pulled up her skirt and shoved his hand between her legs. He ripped her undergarments as he sucked greedily at her throat, and when he felt the brush of the course hair between her legs, he pushed two fingers into her wet heat. She tried to pull her hips away from him, but he had her pinned. She whined as he fucked into her with his fingers, and it angered him. She didn’t know, but she would. He pulled his fingers out of her pussy and slid them back along her perineum and into her anus. Her body twitched, but the effects of his bite were beginning to make her pliant and responsive. His cock was hard and aching, and she was almost ready.

“Get off her.” Jensen was only too aware of the rifle barrel pressed against the back of his head. “Now. Get off her, you son of a bitch.”

“Do it,” Jensen said. He knew his son’s voice. His beautiful 22-year-old son was holding a rifle to his head, but he wouldn’t shoot. A part of Jensen wished he would and that it would end this nightmare, but Josh wouldn’t risk the bullet going through and killing his mother. “Do it,” Jensen said again.

He heard Josh shift and was blinded by pain as the rifle butt landed behind his right ear and knocked him to the floor. He was stunned for a moment and rolled away, but he came up quickly and ripped the rifle from his son’s hands. Jensen stopped with the rifle raised as if to bash his young man’s skull in. 

“No, Jen, no, it’s Josh,” Alta pleaded from the floor. Jensen could see her in the corner of his vision, but he was staring at his son’s face – angry, fearful, tear stained. For 15 years, he’d protected them from this, and now, it was over. They saw him for what he was. 

Jensen lowered the gun. He licked his wife’s blood from his lips and looked down at her. Her nightdress was stained crimson at the throat, and it made him want to finish what he’d started. Her eyes were wild, and he knew that a tiny part of her wanted it too. He laid the rifle on the table.

“I told you to let it go,” he said to her and looked at Josh. “Take care of your mother.” 

His son made a small nod of his head as Jensen backed toward the door. Josh had pulled Alta to her feet and was holding her against his side. She turned her face from Jensen. He felt hollowed out. The rage and even the thirst were gone. He was nothing. He wasn’t a husband or a father. He was a monster.

The gossips were right. He had ruined the Anderson girl. He’d taken her virginity in every way. But she didn’t die of shame. He’d just taken too much from her. She was too weak to live. She wasn’t the only one. There was Prattle’s wife, Olivia, the blacksmith’s son, Jesse, Sister Maria Rosa from St. Cecilia’s who said Our Fathers as he fucked her in the ass. There was the bartender at the tavern who’d learned to drop to his knees when the other patrons had left for the night. There’d been Julia McCormick, eight months pregnant and needy, while her husband was on a cattle drive. Those and others over four counties in 15 years, and none had talked, he’d bet even the good Sister hadn’t confessed, their shame, their humiliation at his hands. Some lived, some had died.

He took one last look at his family and walked out. 

^^o^^  
Jared woke up alone. It wasn’t unusual. Jensen only slept a couple of hours a night. Jared rolled over and pressed his face into the pillow next to his. He smelled Jensen warm and earthy, like iron and wet leaves. Jared relaxed into it.

But the night before wouldn’t let him go. The feel of Jensen’s hand between his shoulder blades, bodies surging on a dance floor, a bartender’s wink, girls’ drunken laughter, a mouth on his cock, Jensen’s hand hard and angry against his chest, then feathery across his stomach.

Jared rolled onto his back and rubbed his face. 

“Fuck.” 

He went into the bathroom and splashed water on his face. He ran his fingers through his hair. 

“Coffee,” he said to his reflection and headed for the kitchen. 

Jensen wasn’t in the living room when he passed through, and he wasn’t in the kitchen. Jared stopped in the doorway. His heart pounded. It was a small apartment. There wasn’t anywhere else for him to be. Don’t panic, he told himself. He’s an adult. It’s 10 a.m. Jared spun around and went back into the bedroom. His hand closed over his keys on the dresser. He breathed out a sigh of relief. Okay, so he went for a walk. That’s fine. Right? Right.

Jared made coffee and had a bowl of cereal. He checked his phone for messages or voice mail, but there was nothing. He took his second cup of coffee into the living room and turned the TV on, but nothing got his attention – DIY shows, bad sci-fi movies, lame stand up comedians. 

He threw the remote down and went back into the kitchen. Well, he’d killed a half an hour. He rinsed the dishes and put them in the dishwasher and wiped down the counters. He huffed out a breath. He was cleaning. Fucking cleaning. He threw the dishrag in the sink.

He grabbed his phone and went into the bathroom for a shower. Another half an hour, a shave, a shower, clean clothes, and he still hadn’t heard from Jensen. 

Jared dropped onto the sofa and stared at the phone in his hand. Time to bite the bullet. He speed dialed Jensen’s number.

“Jared?”

“Hey,” Jared said trying to sound casual. “Where are you?”

“I’m at a museum. It’s amazing.”

“Oh, right, umm, that’s cool,” he said when he really wanted to say, what the fuck? “So when are you coming back?”

“I … hold on a moment.” There was the sound of cars in the background now. “I’m not sure.”

Jared leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. “What do you mean?”

“You said, you needed some space, and I think I do too.”

“What?” Jared’s heart thumped against his ribs. “What do you mean?”

“Jared, you really don’t know anything about me,” Jensen words were measured. He sighed. “I’m not sure I know myself very well.”

“Look, Jensen,” Jared was on his feet now, pacing. “Why don’t you come back. We’ll talk about this.”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Jen …”

“I’m not saying that I’m not coming back, but not yet. We need some time to think things over, Jared. What you said last night about the affect I have on you. You were right. I … you may not want to be with me.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“Jensen.” He was gone. Jared gripped the phone in his hand and was tempted to throw it across the room. “Fuck.”

Jared spent the day on campus arranging his fall schedule and buying books. He didn’t run into anyone he knew, and he was just relieved he didn’t run into Sandy. He knew it was inevitable. He’d see her in classes, and he briefly thought of changing his course work or transferring to Austin or … stupid. He’d hurt her. She wasn’t to blame, and he’d have to suck it up and deal with the consequences.

He went to the library and checked out a couple of books on vampire lore, but didn’t really know why. No, he did. He was killing time. He didn’t want to go home. He could call a friend – Chad or Tom – go out for a beer, but he knew it wouldn’t really distract him. They’d ask him what was wrong, and really, what would he say?

He drove through at McDonald’s and headed home. The apartment seemed small, and the Big Mac gave him indigestion. He drank a beer to try to relax, and it only made his stomach feel worse. He chewed a couple Tums, and flipped through the books from the library. They were mostly lurid pictures, and he realized he knew more about vampires than the authors did.

“And I’ve only met one,” he said aloud and tossed the books aside. 

He turned on the TV and watched a show on astronomy and another on why the basis of quantum physics may be flawed. He didn’t remember a thing he’d watched when he turned the TV off. 

He brushed his teeth and lay down on the bed. He picked up the phone and dialed before he could think about it.

“I know you said you’d call tomorrow, but …”

“But what?”

“I just, I don’t know. I guess, I miss you. I’m used to you being here.”

“I miss you too.” Jared could hear the sound of traffic in the background. “That doesn’t mean I should be there right now,” Jensen said.

“Are you all right?”

“Of course, I’m all right. I’m the predator, remember?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Jared rolled onto his back. “Jensen, don’t … don’t hurt anyone, okay?”

“No, I won’t.”

“And don’t …” fuck anyone else, Jared wanted to say, but he couldn’t, could he? He didn’t have that right.

“What?”

“You’ll come back, won’t you?”

“We’ll see.”

“No.” Jared sat up. “No, if you want to end it, you won’t do it over the phone. Promise that. I wouldn’t do that to you. I’d tell you to your face.”

“Okay, okay.” Jensen paused. “I’m not doing that. I’m not. Relax.”

Jared fell back onto the bed. He turned his head and caught Jensen’s scent. “I’m lying on the bed,” he said softly. “And I can smell you here.” He rubbed his cock through his boxers. 

“Jared,” Jensen’s voice was dark, tight.

“Mmm?” His cock was hard now, straining against the material. So, he shoved it aside and took his dick in his hand. 

“What are you doing?” 

“Thinking about you.” He spit in his palm and slicked his shaft with it.

“God, you know that’s not what I mean,” Jensen’s voice sounded raw like he’d swallowed scalding water and broken glass.

Jared bit back a moan at the sound. “I’m doing what you should be doing right now.”

“Fuck.”

Jared chuckled. “Yeah, that’s about it, but no it’s just my hand.”

“Tell me.”

“It’s so hard, Jen. Feels fevered. Just thinking about you, hearing the sound of your voice, it’s leaking and twitching. Fuck, it’s like Pavlov’s dogs.”

“Who?”

“Never mind. It’s drooling for you, okay.” Jared was stroking and twisting frantically. He had to get off now, while Jensen was right there in his ear. “Tell me what you’d do if you were here.”

“I’d sink my teeth into you, and then I’d sink my cock in your pretty ass, you tease.”

Jared’s hips lifted off the bed as come splattered over his chest. “Jen, fuck, fuck, oh God, miss you so much.”

Jensen chuckled darkly in his ear. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow, Jared.”

“Night, Jen.”

The sun is hot on Jared’s back as he walks across campus with Sandy. Her hair bounces loose on her shoulders, and her dark eyes smile up at him. 

“We could go for a picnic out at the ranch,” she says.

“Yeah, that’d be fun,” he replies but he knows that it isn’t right. He feels uneasy and puts a hand on her arm. She stops, turns toward him. He stoops to kiss her, pushes his tongue into her mouth, and it’s so hot, wet, salty, coppery blood gushes into his mouth. He pulls away with a cry. Blood runs down her chin, and she smiles crimson at him.

“What’s wrong?” Her lips part and a scorpion scrambles from between them and crawls up over her cheek, into her hair.

“Ugh.” Jared trips backing up, starts to fall, and he’s in bed. Jensen’s legs are wrapped around his waist. His head is thrown back, and he’s so fucking beautiful. Jared’s cock sinks into him again, and Jensen moans, pushes his hips up to meet Jared on the next push in. Jared leans forward kisses him, licks down his throat, nips at a nipple, and sinks his teeth into Jensen’s chest. Hot, bright vermillion bursts onto his tongue. Jared sucks hard drawing a keening wail from Jensen who arches under him and comes as though he’s seizing. Ropy pearl jets shoot across Jensen’s chest, and Jared runs the flat of his tongue through mixture red and white swirling together. He thrusts hard into Jensen, and their eyes meet. There’s something dark and possessive in Jensen’s eyes that makes Jared just want to pump hard, more into him. Fill him with his come, own him the same way. 

Jared awakens with his hand on his cock. It’s hard, on the edge of orgasm, and his underwear are soaked with precome. His other hand reaches across the bed, but it’s empty. Of course, it is. 

^^o^^


	6. Chapter 6

Jared’s phone started to vibrate in the middle of his 7 p.m. Cultural Resources Management class. He pulled it out of his pocket. His mama. Shit, this was the third time in two days. He hadn’t called back, and he knew she was getting steamed, which was confirmed when he checked his voice mail during break.

“Call me by 11 or I’m getting in the car and driving up there. I mean it, Jared Tristan Padalecki.”

“Fuck me.”

“It’s a date,” Kylie grinned as she dropped quarters into the candy machine. Jared had known Kylie since Freshman year when they’d had one date and became drinking buddies.

Jared groaned.

“That bad?” She asked fishing a bag of peanut M&Ms out of the machine.

“My mama.” He pushed the phone back into his pocket.

“Call or else? I get those every couple of weeks too. Might as well bite the bullet, Jay. You know she’ll win.” She offered him a candy.

“Thanks. I know, it’s just ... she’s so ...”

“Nosey?”

He chuckled, “Yeah, that.”

Jared was home by 10:15, but he put off calling for another 15 minutes. Finally, he cracked open a beer, slumped on the sofa, and hit return call. 

“So, you’re still alive.”

Jared pinched the bridge of his nose. “Mama, I’m sorry. You know classes just started up and things have been kind of crazy.”

“Classes started two weeks ago.” She paused, but he didn’t fill the gap. “Is it Jensen?”

“No.” He sighed and knew she heard it. “No, Jensen and I are taking a break.”

“Oh,” her tone softened, “are you okay?” He heard the clatter of dishes.

“Yeah, yeah, I guess. We ... just, things got started really fast, and we thought maybe we should slow things down.” He took a drink of beer. 

“I see. Well, that’s probably a good idea. I mean ...” A cabinet door banged in the background.

“Yeah.”

“And you and Sandy?” She asked, and he heard soft sound of the refrigerator door closing. She was cooking. She did that when she was upset. 

“I haven’t seen her, but no, that’s not .... no, Mama.”

“I guess I don’t understand, Jared.”

He pressed the cold bottle to his forehead. “I know, Mama. It’s just ... whether things work out between Jensen and I ... I’ve realized things that ... I’m not who or what I thought. I guess, I’m still trying to figure it all out, okay?”

“Oh, honey ... I wish ...” He waited a long pause for her to continue, but she didn’t. 

“That I’m the boy you thought I was.” His chest hurt at the thought of disappointing her. 

“No, that you knew ... that you weren’t going through this.”

“Yeah, yeah, me too.” He took another pull on the bottle.

“And Jensen, how are you feeling about him?”

“I miss him.”

“And how does he feel about you?”

“He says he misses me.”

“Then why aren’t you together?”

Jared swallowed the last bit of beer, not even a mouthful. “It’s complicated, Mama. We’re different, you know?”

“In what way?”

Fuck, how does he explain that? “He’s, umm, older.”

There’s momentary silence on the other end of the phone. “How much older?”

“He’s 29.”

“Well, that’s not so much older.” He could hear the sound of a spoon banging the sides of a bowl. Reading between the lines, he knew she didn’t mean it wasn’t significant, just that it could be worse.

“Yeah, I know, but ... you know, he grew up on a ranch, and I’m a city kid. He’s likes going out to clubs, and I’m kind of homebody. It’s little things, and maybe they don’t really matter or won’t. I don’t know.” Where was he even coming up with this bullshit? Who knew it could spring from him fully formed. Lying to his mama was a hidden talent. “That’s not even it ... it was just really overwhelming, and it caught us both off guard, especially me, and he didn’t understand. So ... there’s that.”

“Jared.”

“So, he thought he should give me some space, you know, some time to think about it.” Jared felt tears burning his eyes and his throat tightening.

“Oh, honey.”

“I ... listen, I gotta go. I’m sorry I didn’t call before. I will. I’ll keep in touch.”

“Jared.”

“Love you, Mama.”  
“I love you too, baby.”

He thumbed the disconnect icon, put his face in his hands, and let the tears fall. 

^^o^^  
1918

Jensen traveled – all over Texas, north into New Mexico, Arizona, east into Louisiana. He liked the bigger towns like New Orleans and Houston. It was easy to get lost in the crowds and the vice. But he always came back. He had to check on Joshua and his family – two children, eight grandchildren. It was a compulsion. He didn’t claim to like what he saw. Drought was destroying the grazing land, and Josh kept having to sink the well deeper. Jensen despaired that he couldn’t help, and Josh wouldn’t let him even if that were possible. 

At dusk, he made a circuitous route around a small cabin on the outskirts of town, and seeing no one in the vicinity, he tied his horse in a stand of scrub in back. He approached the cabin, keeping to the shadows, and knocked softly on the door. A doe-eyed young man opened the door for him.

“Noah.”

“I’ve been expecting you, Jen.” 

Jensen pushed the door shut behind him and secured it. He pulled the school teacher into his arms and kissed him. 

“Did you miss me?”

Noah looked up at him with shining eyes, lips parted. “Yes, you know I did.” He pulled away from Jensen. “I have a bottle wine. I saved it for you. No one else in this town would drink it with me. They’re all cheap ale and rot gut.”

He uncorked the bottle and poured some into two small jelly jars. He handed one to Jensen and shrugged. “Best glasses I could manage.”

Jensen smiled and took a drink. “You don’t belong here.”

“Yeah.” He lowered his eyes. “They’re looking for you, Jen.”

“I’m always cautious.” He took Noah’s chin between his fingers and lifted it. “No one followed me here.” He leaned in and kissed the young man again. “Don’t worry. It’s just you and me.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Noah wrapped his arms around Jensen’s neck and pulled him back into the kiss. Jensen pulled the smaller man’s shirttails out of his trousers and ran his hands over the smooth skin. He was lovely and untouched by anyone but Jensen. He felt a deep possessiveness of the boy. Jensen put his lips to the soft skin of the young man’s neck and the suction pulled a moan from Noah’s throat that reverberated through Jensen’s body. It made his teeth itch and his cock swell. He pushed the boy toward the bed. 

“Take off your clothes.” Jensen began to unbutton his own as he watched Noah frantically tear at his shirtfront and fly. Jensen took his time, and Noah was kneeling naked on the bed by the time Jensen kicked his trousers off. He was lovely, slim and pale, still almost hairless. His cock was flushed with blood, curving up toward his stomach. His nipples were rosy and peaked. Jensen ran a thumb over one, and Noah shivered. His eyes were bright with lust, but shadowed by something, fear? 

“It’s all right. I’ll take care of you.”

“I know, Jen. I know. I just ...” He stopped, lips parted in need, an invitation. He scooted to the edge of the bed and sat. He licked his lips and took the head of Jensen’s cock between his lips, sucked gently. Jensen twisted his fingers in the other man’s long hair and tipped his hips forward, urging him to take more. 

“Yeah, that’s it.” One hand slid down to the young man’s throat and his thumb pressed to the throbbing artery there. His cock hardened even more, and his skin sizzled with want. As good as Noah’s mouth was, it wasn’t enough. Not nearly. Jensen pulled his cock from Noah’s mouth and pushed him back onto the bed. He crawled up over him on all fours and crushed their mouths hungrily together. Noah cried out as Jensen bit his lip and sucked the living wine from him. 

“Fuck,” Jensen said. “Fuck, you’re so beautiful, so good.”

“Jen, please.” He wrapped his legs around Jensen’s hips and bared his throat. Jensen’s head swam with the wanton need of the younger man. He knew without asking that Noah was ready for him – slick and open, and yes, fuck, yes, how many nights had he done this hoping that Jensen would come – Jensen was sliding past the tight ring of muscle into the hot velvety channel, deep into the other man’s body. No shame, fuck no, this was so right. Jensen pulled Noah against him, nuzzled his throat, and bit down, tentatively, waiting for the first pulse of heat that ignited a blaze through his body. It burned through his veins, along his nerves, crackling and sizzling like tinder on a forest floor. 

Noah was just a moment behind Jensen as he arched up off the bed. “Fuck, Jen, more.” Jensen suckled harder at the wound and drove his cock into Noah like a man possessed. The fire caught, burst through, rushing wild, as they clung and clawed, bucked, as much like fighters as lovers. And when they came just moments apart, it was with curses and grunts. They were panting and slick with come and sweat. 

Jensen licked again at the wound. “So good. Perfect.” He pushed the damp hair back from Noah’s brow and kissed him.

“Mmm, yeah.” He licked the blood from Jensen’s lips.

Jensen fell to his side, an arm and leg still slung over the smaller man. 

“Can we do that again?” Noah asked. 

Jensen chuckled. “Let me catch my breath.”

^^o^^

Jared fell into a routine with studying and classes and advising as a teaching assistant for Dr. Morgan. His days were busy, but his nights were long. Some nights, most nights, he called Jensen. Sometimes Jensen answered, and they talked about Jared’s classes and the places Jensen had been, and Jared would jack himself with Jensen’s voice raw in his ear. He could almost feel Jensen’s pull through the electronic signal buzzing in his head, and it was almost good. He could hear Jensen’s need, and he thought, Jensen will come back now.

Other nights Jensen wouldn’t answer. Those were Jared’s bad nights. Those were the nights Jared lay awake wondering who Jensen was with. He would toss and turn in fear and frustration. No matter how many times he jacked off, he was never satisfied. He could imagine those green eyes looking up at him, those hands sliding over his skin. But no matter what he tried, his body still ached, and his veins felt like barbed wire under his skin. 

He realized it wasn’t garden variety lust. What Jensen gave him made the sex he’d had with Sandy seem like ditch weed. Jensen was pure, uncut Columbian powder, and he was hooked. Hard. It wasn’t just the sex, of course. He knew that it was the biting; whatever Jensen was; what was in the bite. Jared knew he should be freaked out by it. Jensen was like some kind of spider that paralyzes its prey with a bite. But he wasn’t freaked out. It secretly turned him on. He was only beginning to admit to himself how spreading his legs and submitting to Jensen turned him on. He felt needy and desperate. There was an itch in his veins that he couldn’t scratch.

In the daylight it was different. He could be rational. If it was like a drug, he thought, then he was having some kind of withdrawal. It would get better he told himself. That’s how withdrawal is. It might get worse before it got better, but it will get better. And he quit calling Jensen. He needed to just go cold turkey. Focus on school and getting his life back on track. But he was having trouble concentrating. He’d missed an appointment with a student, and he had a paper due in two days that he hadn’t started.  
He just wanted to hear Jensen’s voice. That was all. That wouldn’t really be a setback, would it? Just to call … He wiped sweat from his forehead, but it was beading on the back of his neck too. 

“Are you with us, Mr. Padalecki?”

Kylie nudged him, and Jared sat up. He scratched his arm. Fuck, it felt like there were beetles crawling under his skin, and he felt lightheaded. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Perhaps 7 o’clock is a bad time for you. We could reschedule class,” Dr. Morgan said. Jared knew Jeffrey Morgan, knew he was teasing, but Jared wasn’t up for public ribbing. He felt the rage, couldn’t stop it if he wanted to, and right now he didn’t give a shit.

“Fuck this,” he said and slammed his book shut.

“Jay,” Kylie squeaked and put a hand on his arm.

He shook it off, grabbed his backpack and stormed out of the room

“Jared,” Dr. Morgan called after him.

Fuck, that was fucking stupid, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. He was losing his mind. He felt like an unbalanced engine ready to fly apart at any moment. He was shaking and sick. He stopped next to his truck and vomited. Sweat ran off his shivering body. His hands were shaking so badly he could barely unlock the truck, but he slid into the driver’s seat. He wrapped his arms around himself, leaned his head against the steering wheel and began to sob. After a few moments he heard his own wails and began to think that he really did need help. It was no time to be stubborn.

He fumbled his phone out and dialed without looking. He sobbed when he heard Jensen’s voice. 

“Jared, what is it?”

“I … Jen, something’s wrong. I need you. I’m sick or something. I …” His voice was shaking. He was trying to not fall apart, but the quivering deep in his gut was scaring the hell out of him as it conspired with the dark in his head.

“Where are you?” Jensen’s voice was strong and urgent.

“In my truck.” Jared sucked in a breath.

“Where?” came the clipped response.

“In the Sorensen Building lot. Are you here, Jen? Are you in town?”

“Just breath. I’ll be there soon.”

“Jen, don’t hang up, okay? I don’t think I …”

“You’re going to be fine, darlin’. I’ll take care of you.”

“I’m not, Jen, I’m not okay. I’m going crazy. I feel like I have bugs under my skin, and I can’t sleep. And I need you … God, Jen,” his voice went quiet and weak, “I feel it in my veins, I need you so bad. It hurts. When you don’t answer the phone and I think, I know, you’re with someone else … It’s eating me up …”

“Jesus Christ, Jared, why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t think you wanted me.”

“How could you think that?”

Jared was slumped against the wheel, and he was so cold. “You didn’t come back. Where have you been, Jen? I’m alone. You promised to tell me if you were really leaving.” 

“I didn’t. I’m not.” Jensen sounded exasperated. “You quit calling. I thought …”

“I was trying to get you out of my system, but I couldn’t. Don’t want to.” Jared saw the sweep of headlights through the cab of the truck, distantly heard the thud of a car door, and then a rap on the window. 

“Jared, unlock the door. Let me in.”

He looked up and Jensen was looking in the driver’s side window still holding the phone to his ear. Jared pressed the palm of his hand to the window, and Jensen looked panicked.

“Jared, for God’s sake, open the damn door.” 

Jared dropped his phone then and fumbled with the automatic door lock. Jensen opened the heavy truck door and pulled Jared into his arms. He smoothed the hair back from his face and kissed him quickly on the temple.

“Jesus, you’re burning up.”

“I’m cold.”

“Move over, come on. I’m taking you home.” Jensen pushed him toward the passenger seat.

“You can’t drive.”

“Shut up, Jared.”

“No, Jen …”

“Shut the fuck up and move over.”

Jared finally just wanted to do whatever Jensen asked, and he was way too weak and sick to argue. He slid his ass across the seat, but almost knocked the truck into gear with his too long legs. Once he was in the passenger seat, he slumped into the corner.  
As though drunk, Jared vaguely remembered bits and pieces of Jensen starting the truck and driving through town, scenes of familiar places under street lights, Jensen swaying under his weight as they walked to the apartment, being tucked into bed and a cool, wet cloth being wiped over his face. 

“Go to sleep,” Jensen said again, but Jared fought to stay awake. “Jared, please, you need to rest.”

“I need you.”

Jensen smiled. “No, darlin’, not like that you don’t. You have the flu. You need to rest.”  
He had the flu. He felt foolish. “No, Jen, it wasn’t the flu.”

“Shh, we can talk about when you feel better.”

“We can? You won’t go?”

“No, I’m not going anywhere.”

^^o^^

1918

Jensen awoke in agony. A caustic, searing pain soaked into the skin at his ankles, wrists, and throat. He tried to move but was pinned to the bed by the pain. He smelled flesh burning, his flesh, he realized. Noah was standing back from the bed with wet cheeks and a hand pressed to his mouth as though he was about to wretch. 

“I’m sorry, Jen. God, I’m so sorry.” He put his hands out as though in supplication. “They were going to kill me.” 

Jensen turned his head enough to see sliver chains binding him to the bed. The skin under them was bubbling, smoking. They sank through his skin and began to eat away at muscle, ligament, veins. His struggles against them just ratcheted up the pain, and he screamed. He was panting and tried to clear his head.

“Don’t do this,” Jensen pleaded. “They won’t let you go, Noah.” This couldn’t be fucking happening. He forced himself to breathe. “They won’t, not after what you’ve done with me. You have to know that ... you do, don’t you?”

“I’m sorry, Jen. Really.” Jensen could see the terror in the young man’s eyes. “He said he’d give me a train ticket back to St. Louis.”

“Who, Noah?”

He just shook his head and looked away.

“Noah, I’ve been good to you. Haven’t I? I’ll take care of you. I’ll get you out of here. Please, just let me go.”

“I can’t, Jen. It’s too late.” Noah glanced toward the window, and the door burst open the broken lock sending splinters of wood flying across the room. Three men entered. One approached the bed. The other two grabbed Noah, but Jensen couldn’t see past the man with the green eyes – eyes so like his and so different. And he understood.

“Let him go, Josh. You made a deal with him.” Jensen heard fists striking flesh, heard Noah cry out.

Joshua’s smile was cold. “Deals with heathens and faggots don’t stick.” He stepped into the lamplight, and Jensen was surprised at how old he looked. His hair was gray and the skin under his eyes and around his mouth sagged. 

“Don’t do this to him, Josh. Kill me. Do you what you want with me, but he isn’t evil. He’s just a kid. I corrupted him.” The searing pain was creeping up his legs and arms, into his head.

“Yeah, you did, and he likes it. He begs for you to use him like a woman, doesn’t’ he? How many have you done this to, you sick bastard? I used to look up to you. Can’t believe you were ever my father, that we’re even related. The shame you’ve brought on us, on Mama. You’re a monster.”

“You gave Noah your word. At least I’ve never gone back on that. If you do this to him, you’re no better than me.” Jensen gritted his teeth against the scream that was building in his chest.

“You have no right to judge me. I know what you are.” Joshua leaned over the bed. “I see the blood on your face. I know what you did with him, with the others, what you would have done to Mama. You disgust me.”

Jensen was panting and tears stood in his eyes. “Josh, I didn’t ask for this. It was forced on me. I tried, I tried to be a husband and father. I did. I loved your mother. Despite this, despite what I was made into, Josh, I didn’t take her blood. For 15 years, I didn’t. I never meant to.”

“But you did. She never recovered from that, you son of a bitch.”

Tears spilled from Jensen’s eyes and made tracks through the bloodstains on his cheeks. “So stop me, Josh. Kill me.”

Joshua leaned close to Jensen. “I don’t think so.” 

Jensen saw the gleam of lamplight on the blade, and his screams at the bright, silvery pain of the blade across his throat turned to gurgles as he choked on his own blood. He gasped and coughed. He fought against the sliver chains again too panicked to pay any mind to the agony in his limbs, but soon he was too weak to fight. He couldn’t speak, but he tried to plead with his eyes.

As though he understood, Josh said, “You’re getting what you deserve. I’m sending you to hell.” He stood and looked behind him. “Can you see him? Your pretty whore? Not so pretty anymore.” He shrugged. “Maybe the good Lord will grant forgiveness on his soul. He betrayed you after all.”

Jensen felt the last of his strength ebbing. His head fell to the side. The sheets looked garnet in the lamplight. 

^^o^^

Jensen was lying on the bed with an arm around Jared’s waist as he had off an on for 16 hours, when he wasn’t holding Jared as he threw up or getting him 7Up or wiping his face with a damp cloth or reassuring him that he’d be there when Jared woke up.

He nuzzled the back of Jared’s neck and ignored the smell of sweat and sickness. He didn’t care. Underneath was the smell of Jared, warm and comforting, like fall fields with an undercurrent of burnt opium. Jensen’s cock was half hard. He made a small scratch on Jared’s shoulder with his teeth, barely enough to bleed, and Jared’s hand came up as though to brush whatever it was away. Jensen took his wrist and held it. He pressed his tongue to the scratch, and Jared arched back against him. Jensen was suddenly hard. Jared didn’t wake, but rubbed his ass against Jensen’s erect cock. 

Jensen pulled his dick through the slit of his boxers and pushed Jared’s pajama bottoms down far enough that he could slide his cock into the crack of Jared’s ass. The head of it nudged the back of Jared’s balls. He bit a little more deeply into Jared’s shoulder and held still waiting to see what Jared would do. He made a small gasp but didn’t wake. The drag of skin on dry skin was painful, and Jensen withdrew. He spit into his hand and slicked his cock, pushed back into the tight space between Jared’s legs, and sucked at the cut in his flesh.

He pulled the smell of Jared into his body, and it was intoxicating – the sweat of fear and desperation and need, arousal and youth. Jensen spit in his hand again, reached around, and took Jared’s swollen cock in his hand. God, it felt good to be back here. Jared bucked into his fist, fucking himself in it. Jensen groaned as he sucked at Jared’s shoulder. He tasted like no one else – salty, earthy, yes, but rich and sweet like honey, acidic like merlot. While he could never get enough, he knew he couldn’t allow himself to get drunk on it. Despite the relatively gentle, shallow movement of his cock between Jared’s legs, he could feel his balls tightening. It was as though the control he forcing on himself was heightening every sensation, and Jared moving languidly in his sleep, unknowingly fucking himself into Jensen’s hand, was so incredible

Tension was building in every muscle, and Jensen was quivering with it; trying to keep himself from fucking hard against Jared. And like a over-wound spring Jensen snapped, shuddering and shooting gobs of hot, sticky slick onto Jared’s balls. He bit back a moan as Jared’s cock twitched in his hand, and Jared gasped, awake, as his come coated his stomach and Jensen’s hand. 

“I’m sorry,” Jensen said, but he wasn’t sure if he was apologizing for molesting him in his sleep or covering him with their come.

“It’s okay,” Jared said shakily. “There’s worse ways to wake up.”

“Mmm, still …”

“I should take a shower.” Jared started to sit up but fell back onto the pillows.

“No, I’ll take care of it. You need to rest.”

He rolled Jared onto his back and pulled the covers down. He wondered how could have stayed away so long. Jared looked drowsily at him and smiled, and Jensen gave him a wicked smile. Looking down at Jared smeared with their come, he felt his cock twitch. He bent and licked a stripe from the back of Jared’s balls halfway up his stomach. The muscles under Jensen’s tongue jumped and rippled. Jared’s hands bracketed his head, made him look up.

“I’m glad you’re home.”

“Me too.”

^^o^^


	7. Chapter 7

Jensen didn’t have any clean clothes with him. So, as he had when he first arrived, he put on a pair of Jared’s jeans with the hems rolled up and a NIN t-shirt that was so worn it was almost see-through.

He had cleaned Jared up and got him out of bed long enough to change the sheets before tucking him back in. He’d gotten Jared to eat half a piece of toast and drink most of a cup of tea with milk before his eyes had started to droop with exhaustion. Jensen sat with him and stroked his hair until he was asleep.

Satisfied that Jared would sleep awhile, he took a shower eager to get the dried come off his own crotch where it itched. Now, having thrown yet more clothes into the growing pile of laundry, he moved quietly into the bedroom to adjust the curtains so the afternoon light wouldn’t bother Jared.

The ringtone on Jared’s phone went off again, and Jensen paused. It had been going off periodically throughout the day, and he’d ignored it. But the insistence of whoever was calling made him think that maybe he ought to invade his lover’s privacy after all. He went into the living room and picked it up off the table. Six calls all from Jared’s mother. He bit his lip and thought about it only a moment before returning the call.

“Jared Tristan Padalecki, it’s about time. My keys were in my hand, I swear to God you had me so worried. Kylie called last night and said you’d cussed at the professor and stormed out of class. I’ve been trying to call you all morning. You better have a damn good reason for not answering my calls, young man.” There was a pause during which she apparently expected Jared to answer. “Well …”

Jensen took a breath. “Mrs. Padalecki, this is Jensen.”

He heard a sharp intake of breath. “Where’s Jared? What’s happened?”

“He’s in bed, asleep.” Jensen kept his voice low and even, as though he was talking to a frightened child or skittish horse. “He has the flu. He called me from campus last night to come get him.”

“I, oh, I’m sorry …” He could hear car keys jingling in her hand.

“No, I’m sorry. I heard the phone ring earlier, but I didn’t think to check it. When I did, I thought I should call, that you might be worried.” He went into the kitchen and took the used coffee filter and grounds out of the coffee maker and tossed them in the trash.

“Thank you. I really was about to drive up there. He’s been so upset late … How is he?”

Jensen couldn’t help but smile at what she’d almost said. “He’s doing better. His fever’s gone down. He just needs to rest.” He put a new filter in and added coffee.

“Is he eating?” 

Do all mothers judge how sick their sons are on how much they’re eating, Jensen wondered, and his mind flashed to Alta pressing hand to Josh’s fevered forehead. He pushed the image away. “He had some toast a little while ago.” He poured water into the machine and pushed the on button.

“Good,” she huffed. “Well, I hope you’re taking good care of him.” He heard the jingling again. She hadn’t put her keys down.

Jensen felt a stab in the heart because he hadn’t been, had he? “I’m trying too.” He leaned against the counter and rubbed his neck.

“All right, well, are you going to be there for awhile? Because I could come up until he gets well.”

“I’m not planning on going anywhere,” he said quietly.

“What?”

Jensen cleared his throat. “I said, I’m not going anywhere.”

“Good, because …” He could almost hear her arguing with herself about whether she should say more. “I’ve had a very hard time not coming up there, so I could look him in the eye and know if he’s telling me the truth. He isn’t telling me something. I’m not stupid. I know him. And after what Sandy told me … I’m worried about him.”

“About me,” Jensen corrected. 

“He isn’t himself.” She paused, deliberating. “Sandy said that you told her you own Jared.”

Fuck. “I … wish I could apologize to her. I reacted badly to the things she said. Of course, I didn’t mean that. Jared’s his own person. He makes up his own mind.”

“She said you hurt her.

What? Jensen was searched his memory. “I … no, I don’t think so.”

“You bruised her arm. I saw it.”

Jensen almost laughed. My God, the things he’d done and he was being accused of hurting someone over a bruised arm. “I was just trying to keep her away from me. She … she’s quite a firebrand.”

“Yes, I suppose she is.”

“I understand, she was shocked and angry. I wasn’t expecting a confrontation at that time of the morning either.”

She sighed, and he heard her keys hit a solid surface as though thrown onto a table. “Jared said you went away to give him time to think, but you must not have gone far.”

The corners of Jensen’s mouth twitched. “Not too far.” He poured a cup of coffee.

“I see. Well, it doesn’t seem to have helped anyway. I just don’t understand it. He seemed content with school and Sandy, his friends, everything. He was never confused about what he wanted or where his future was going, and now … he just doesn’t seem like himself.”

“Sometimes, we don’t even know ourselves deep down,” he said. 

“Why would you say that?”

“I went through something similar once.”

“I see. Well, that doesn’t mean you know better than Jared what he wants,” she said.

“No, I know.” Jensen ran a hand over his face and rubbed his eyes. “Whatever happens, it will be what Jared wants. I’ll respect that.”

“See that you do, and have Jared call me as soon as he’s awake. I don’t care what time it is. I want to talk to him at least for a moment.”

“I will.”

^^o^^

The next time Jared awoke it was dark. Quiet. He rolled over and turned on the bedside lamp. He was alone. 

“Jensen.”

He pushed the covers back and swung his legs out of bed. The door opened.

“Don’t get up,” Jensen said as he approached the bed. “What’s wrong?”

“I need you.”

“I’m right here.” Jensen pushed Jared’s hair back from his face.

Jared scratched at his arms where beetles crawled under his skin and his hollowed out veins ached. “No, I mean I need you.” Jared grabbed Jensen’s wrist and pulled him forward as he bared his throat.

Jensen did nothing more than kiss Jared’s throat and lean back. “Jared, you’re sick.”

“No, no, Jen,” Jared panted. “This isn’t the flu. That’s what I was trying to tell you. I need you, Jen.”

“No, Jared, you don’t. It isn’t like that.”

“Don’t tell me it’s all in my head. You don’t know how I feel. I feel like my veins are dried straw, like my nerves are bare wires shorting out, like, fuck, like there’s beetles crawling under my skin. ”

“Jesus, I …” Jensen dropped his head. “Jared, you’re weak, dehydrated. I can’t take your blood with you like this.”

Jared shook his head. “No, no, you can … please, Jen, you don’t know what this feels like.”

Jensen’s eyes met his. “I think I do.”

Jared went still. His mouth dropped open. “This. This is what you feel like when you need to … How could you do this to me? You got me hooked on this.”

Jensen shook his head. “No, I didn’t know. There was never anyone who told me it was like this for them, Jared. I don’t know if you’re different or … I don’t know.” He took Jared’s face in his hands. “I’m sorry.”

“Just a little, Jen. Just enough to take the edge off or maybe it doesn’t even take much. Jesus fucking Christ, I need this so bad.” Those last few words came out in a desperate rush that left Jared with tears standing in his eyes.

“Shh, okay,” Jensen said. “Okay, just a little.” He leaned forward and pushed Jared back onto the pillows. He licked Jared’s neck and the young man gave a full body shudder in anticipation. Jensen bit through the tender skin of Jared’s throat. 

Jared thought for a moment that nothing would happen. He was just crazy. It was all in his head, but then heat blossomed from his neck and in a rush spread through his body. His veins became pliable again, his nerves sang like guitar strings, and his skin flushed and sparked everywhere they touched. He moaned and his eyes rolled back in his head. 

Jensen suckled gently at his throat and lapped at the wound. Jared moaned again and his hand weakly cupped the back of Jensen’s head. His cock was hard and his hips pushed off the bed seeking contact with Jensen’s body. Jensen’s hand slipped under the covers and fisted Jared’s cock, and Jared thrust up into it. He was shaking; it had been so long and the now familiar fire was burning through his body, filling him, lighting him up. Jensen stroked him and ran his thumb over the head. Jared gasped and arched off the bed as he spilled over Jensen’s hand. The vampire lapped at Jared’s throat one last time and kissed him. Jared tasted his own blood, so familiar now.

“Please, Jen, don’t stop.”

“No more,” Jensen said licking his fingers and Jesus fucking Christ that was hot. “Not this time. You need to get your strength back.” Jensen sat up and smoothed Jared’s hair. “And you need a shower.”

“Yeah, I bet.” He started to sit up.

“Not now, darlin’, you’re too weak.” Jensen pushed him back against the pillows.

“No, I feel filthy. Come on,” Jared begged. “I feel a little better now, and I’ll feel a lot better after …”

“No.”

Jared huffed out a breath. “Can I have some water? A big glass.”

“Sure.” Jensen went into the kitchen and came back with a tall glass of cool water. Jared drank about half of it down straight off. Jensen put a hand on his arm. “Slow down or you’ll make yourself sick.”

“Jen, do you think I could take a bath? You could help me. I really, really need to get clean.”

Jensen stroked his cheek. “Okay, yeah, I guess that would work.” Jensen got up from the edge of the bed and started toward the bathroom. “Stay there.”

Jared reached over to the nightstand, picked up his phone and clicked it on. He thumbed to the list of recent calls – Evan, Sydney, Jared, Evan, Evan, Sydney, Evan. Not his phone, Jensen’s phone.

“Jared.”

Jensen was looking at the phone in his hand. He held it out and Jensen took it, set it back on the nightstand.

“You’ve been fucking Evan, and who’s Sydney?” He heard his voice quaver and hated himself for it.

“Sydney is someone I play chess with,” Jensen said as he sat on the edge of the bed.

“Is that what they call it?” he said bitterly.

“I’m not fucking her. I wouldn’t lie about that.”

Tears, hot and humiliating, erupted from Jared, and he struck out at Jensen who easily caught his wrist and held on. “I hate you.”

“Do you indeed?”

“Yes, yes, I do. I hate you for fucking me up like this; for making me need you; for leaving me.”

“Really? Do you hate me for answering the phone the other night; for coming to get you; for bringing you home and taking care of you?” Jensen was expressionless. “Would you like me to leave then?”

All the fight went out of Jared and slumped back against the pillows. “No,” he said quietly. “No.”

“All right then, let’s get you into the bath.” Jensen took Jared’s hand and pulled him to his feet. 

Jared couldn’t believe how weak he was as Jensen helped him to the bathroom and into the tub. The water was right on the edge of too hot and just right, and the steam rose up around him. Jensen tipped Jared’s head back and cupped a hand over his eyes as he poured water over his hair. 

“I can bathe myself, Jen,” he said, but it wasn’t really a complaint. “I’ve been doing it since I was about four.”

“Mm-hmm, but I want to take care of you. I said I would, and I’ve been doing a miserable job of it,” Jensen said soothingly. He worked shampoo through Jared’s hair and massaged his scalp with his fingertips.

“Mmm, that feels so good,” Jared said. “If I fall asleep, you won’t let me drown, will you?”

Jensen chuckled. “No, promise.” He rinsed Jared’s hair.

“What about conditioner?”

“I think you can live without it for one day.” He soaped a washcloth and gently began to wash Jared’s face. “You need a shave.” 

“I need to brush my teeth,” he said. “Can I?”

“Now?”

“Yeah, please.”

Jensen got up and went to the sink. He put some toothpaste on Jared’s brush and brought it back to him. He scrubbed his teeth thoroughly and his tongue, spit into the toilet – one advantage of a small bathroom, he thought – and rinsed his mouth from the glass of water Jensen held out and spit again.

“Better?” Jensen asked.

“You tell me,” Jared said and pulled Jensen forward with the hand fisted in his t-shirt. The kiss was open and wet and deep. Jared pulled Jensen closer and broke the kiss. “Come here.” Jensen was on the verge of tipping into the tub.

“I’m dressed,” he chuckled against Jared’s lips. “And that tub isn’t big enough for both of us.” He kissed Jared again and pried his fingers loose from the worn t-shirt. “Let’s get you out of there.” 

He helped Jared up and out of the tub. Jared braced a hand against the wall while Jensen dried him off, and that was the last thing he needed if Jensen didn’t want to have sex because the soft chuff of the towel over his skin and the sight of Jensen giving attention to every inch of his skin was too much – especially when he was squatting down with is face just inches from Jared’s hard, aching dick.

“Jen.”

Green eyes tilted up and met his at first wide and questioning and then becoming dark and hooded before dropping away as he stood. He took Jared by the elbow and steered him into the bedroom. Jensen tossed him a pair of sweats and a t-shirt.

“Jen,” he said quietly. “I need you.”

“What you need is some food. Put those on.” Jensen stood back and leaned on the dresser.

“Jensen.”

“And coffee.”

Well, okay, Jared thought, maybe some coffee, and his stomach was growling, but Jensen looked good enough to eat. Why was Jensen dressed in his jeans and old t-shirt so hot anyway? Jared wondered if his ass ever looked that good in those Levi’s. Jensen eyed him with a smirk. Cheeky bastard.

Jared pulled the sweat pants and t-shirt on, and made his way to the living room with Jensen hovering behind him. He dropped onto the sofa and Jensen tossed his phone to him. 

“Call your mother,” he said as he headed toward the kitchen. “She had her keys in her hand when I talked to her. She made me promise you’d call.”

“Wait,” Jared said leaning forward. “You talked to my mama?”

Jensen turned back. “Yes, after the sixth call I figured it might be important.”

“What did you say?” Jared’s heart was thumping in his chest like a panicked hare.

“I said you had the flu and you were sleeping,” Jensen said.

“And?”

“And what? I told her you’d call when you woke up. So, you better not put it off much longer or she’ll be knocking on the door.” Jensen disappeared into the kitchen and left Jared staring at the phone. He sighed and after a moment called the last number dialed.  
The phone barely had time to ring once and he heard her voice. “Jared, honey, are you all right?”

“Sitting on the phone, mama?” He tried to make it light.

“Don’t you joke with me. I’ve been worried sick,” she scolded.

“Mama … I thought Jensen told you I just had the flu?” He rubbed his forehead.

“You know darn well, this isn’t just about the flu.” She paused, and he heard the bang of a pan against the stove top. “You have not been yourself over the past few weeks, and I want you to talk to me.”

“Mama, I’m exhausted. This has taken a lot out …”

“Don’t you try to put me off, Jared. I don’t like what ‘s going on …”

Jensen came into the living room and set a mug of coffee on the table with a small smile. Jared reached out and tried to grab Jensen’s wrist.

“There’s food on the stove,” Jensen whispered as he moved away.

“Jen … thanks,” he whispered back and picked up the cup. It was awesome. He never had coffee this good at home until Jensen moved in and he’d missed this too.

“Jared,” his mother’s voice cracked in his ear. “Are you listening to me?”

“Yeah, yes, sorry,” he stammered. “I, umm, Jensen was just in here for a moment.”

There was silence on the other end of phone.

“Mama, come on, you talked to him. Did he seem as awful as Sandy said?” He was hoping like hell that he hadn’t.

“Tell me about him,” she said. Her voice was tight with tension and colored with suspicion. “What’s he like?”

Jared took a sip of coffee. “He, umm, he’s really smart and a little old fashioned and has a kind of dry sense of humor. He’s been taking really good care of me while I’ve been sick, and he’s, umm, he’s kind of beautiful.”

“What does he do?” Pans continued to clang in the background.

“Do?” Oh fuck, he hadn’t thought up a lie for that one.

“For a living, Jared, what does he do for a living?”

“Oh, well …” Suddenly his stomach let out a loud growl.

“Was that your stomach? Haven’t you eaten?”

“I just woke up and took a bath. Jensen’s cooking right now and the smell, I guess, got to me,” he laughed.

“So he’s really taking care of you?” she asked quietly.

“Yes, Mama, he really is. What are you cooking for dinner?”

“Fried chicken,” she said, and he could hear the smile in her voice.

“Oh, that sounds so good.” It was his favorite, his mother’s fried chicken with mashed potatoes and milk gravy. “Are there green beans?”

“You know it, sugar.”

“I miss you,” he said. 

“I miss you too, sweetheart,” she said with real warmth. “Why don’t you come down this weekend and bring Jensen. I want to meet him.”

“I, I’ll try,” he said. “I’m behind on school work, but I’ll try to make it up.”

Jensen walked back into the living room then with a plate piled high with bacon and eggs and fried potatoes. 

“Oh holy shit,” Jared exclaimed.

“Excuse me?” Sherri said.

“I, oh, sorry, Mama,” Jared laughed. “Jensen just walked in here with food. Oh my God.” 

He swiped a piece of bacon off the plate as Jensen set it on the coffee table and stuffed it in his mouth. “Thaz aweshome.” He grabbed Jensen’s wrist and pulled him down for a kiss. He heard his mother huff in his ear and realized she could hear everything that was going on.

“I should let you go so you can eat,” she said.

“Yeah, okay, I love you, Mama. I’ll call you.” He thumbed the phone off and fumbled it onto the table before stuffing a forkful of fried potatoes into his mouth, and ohmyfuckinggod, they are amazingly crispy on the edges and buttery soft inside seasoned with sautéed onion and bell peppers. Jared leaned back into the corner of the couch and moaned.

“Where did you learn to cook like this?” he asked around a mouthful of scrambled eggs.

Jensen smirked from the other end of the couch, but his expression became serious. “I had a mama once too.”

“Right,” Jared said. “What was she like?”

Jensen shrugged. “She was wonderful, generous, caring.” He paused and ate a mouthful of potatoes. “She died when I was twelve,” he said without looking up. “I was the oldest. So, I had to take care of the younger kids.”

“I’m sorry,” Jared said. He pushed his toes down between the couch cushion and Jensen’s thigh. 

“Good thing I learned how. I had to teach my wife to cook,” he said with a small smile.

“Yeah?” Jared took a sip of coffee. “I thought all women new how to cook back then?”

“Not girls who grew up with slaves.”

“Oh, I … “

“Never thought of it? Yeah well, Alta grew up in town. Her dad was a banker.” Jensen shrugged. “She kind of married beneath her.” He set his plate on the coffee table and rubbed his face. “I guess she should have married the dry goods owner. She would have been …” He huffed out a bitter laugh. “No, I guess she wouldn’t have been better off actually.”

“You loved her a lot,” Jared said setting his plate aside.

Jensen nodded and his eyes were glassy with tears. “When I was a different man.”

“No,” Jared slid down the sofa until he was almost in Jensen’s lap. “You love her now. Still.”

Jensen took Jared’s hands in his and looked down them. “Do you love Sandy that way?” he asked.

Jared’s fingers tightened around Jensen’s . “No, Jen, I don’t.”

Jensen looked him in the eye then. “You’re sure? Because I don’t want to do to you what was done to me.”

“I’m sure.”

“But you said that I was changing you, that you didn’t know yourself. I was getting you to do things you wouldn’t have done.”

Jared nodded. “Yeah, I said that, but I’ve thought about it. I had a lot of time to think when you were gone, and just because I didn’t do them before, doesn’t mean I don’t want to do them. You said something like that the first night you were here. Just because I didn’t have sex with guys didn’t mean that the desire wasn’t there. You were right. I mean, unless you’ve been using some kind of mojo on me.” He lifted his brows questioningly.

“No, I, no, I’m not coercing you.”

“Okay then. Here’s the thing. I want to be with you, and we can’t go on like this, right? This thing that I have, this need …”

“I’ve been thinking about that, I think it might be the bloodline.”

“What do you mean?”

Jensen scooted around to face him and laid his arm atop Jared’s on the back of the sofa. “I told you before that no one else ever had this happen when all I was doing was taking blood from them. You’re the first. The only thing that’s different is that you are of my bloodline.”

“I … okay, I have to say that it kind of freaks me out that you’re like my great-great-something-grandfather, but … yeah, you could tell when you bit me, right?”

Jensen’s hand rose from the back of the couch and stroked his cheek. “Yeah, I could. It’s hard to explain. It isn’t like I can taste it; I feel it like there’s a bond, something tying us together. I’m sorry, I should have realized it might mean more.”

“Yeah, but how were you to know?” Jared shrugged. 

Jensen ran his thumb over Jared’s lower lip. “You’re right we can’t keep on like this. It’s good that I left for awhile. I can’t keep taking blood from you, you know that. You’re young and strong, but …”

“You said …”

“I said if I give you time to recover in between, but we were hardly doing that before.”

“You’ve had lovers in the past though, haven’t you?”

“Not exclusively, not after I realized or cared that I was making them sick by taking too much, too often.”

Jared leaned forward and put his head on Jensen’s shoulder. He kissed the vampire’s neck, ran his tongue over it. He was warm, not like a fictional vampire, and his blood pulsed under the skin when Jared pressed his lips there. 

“If you turn me, we’ll both have to take blood from others though, right?”

“Yes, but that can be …”

“Like Evan?”

“Mmm, like Evan.”

Jared smiled against Jensen’s skin. “That was fun.”

Jensen stroked his hair. “We could be good together.”

“We are good together,” Jared whispered.

^^o^^


	8. Chapter 8

“I want you to turn me,” Jared whispered against Jensen’s neck. His breath chuffed hot and moist against Jensen’s skin.

Jensen pulled back and looked at Jared, into the tilted fox eyes. “What, now?”

“Why not?” Jared tried to pull Jensen back against him, but the vampire put a palm in the middle of Jared’s chest and held them apart.

“Because we have to talk a lot more about it. I won’t let you rush into it.” Much as Jensen wanted Jared with him, he’d behaved much too rashly with the boy. He knew that. The panic he’d felt when Jared had called him two nights earlier was still fresh in his mind.

At the beginning, Jensen had been overwhelmed with the rush and joy of life, with the beauty and vitality of the boy who’d saved him, and he’d been selfish, he’d pushed Jared too hard, too soon. He’d still have Jared, but he had to be patient. 

Jared leaned back in. “Jen, if we’re going to do it …”

Jensen pushed Jared away, onto his back, and Jared had no choice but to let his legs sprawl with one foot on the floor and one leg bent up against the back of the couch. 

“No,” Jensen said as he crawled up over him. “We have all the time in the world.”

“Ha, well, you do,” Jared laughed.

Jensen smirked and kissed him with just a light brush of lips. “How do you feel?”

“I feel good, clean and full of food and horny,” he tried to pull Jensen down on top of him, but the smaller man stayed on his hands and knees. “Want you to fuck me, Jen.”

Jensen stroked his cheek. “I’m going to,” he said. His fingers trailed down Jared’s neck, thumb sweeping over his pulse point, across his firm chest where they paused to tease a nipple through the cotton of his t-shirt. Jared’s hands rubbed up and down Jensen’s upper arms as though the movement would urge Jensen on. Jensen looked up at him through his lashes, and Jared’s lips were parted with the tip of pink tongue visible between his teeth, and his eyes were hooded and dark. 

Jensen let his hand slide down farther. The backs of his fingers rubbed across the hard ridge of Jared’s cock under his sweats, and Jared’s hips rolled up in response. Jensen let his fingers rub back and forth.

“Be still,” he said. 

“Jen, please,” Jared moaned. “It’s been so long.”

Jensen was enjoying winding Jared up, but it had been too long, and my God, the boy was so beautiful. Jensen pulled himself up and stood next to the couch while Jared’s hands chased him. Jensen offered Jared his hand.

“This sofa is far too small for the two of us,” he said. 

Jared took his hand and Jensen pulled him to his feet, but Jared didn’t stop. He stepped into Jensen space and wrapped his arms around him. His mouth sought out Jensen’s. Jensen didn’t try to stop him. He opened his mouth willingly and let Jared explore it. Jared suckled Jensen’s tongue like a starving thing before Jensen caught the other man’s tongue and sucked firmly at it, pulling a moan from Jared.

Jensen broke the kiss and stepped away. Suddenly, Jared was ahead of him, pulling Jensen toward the bedroom and stripping off his t-shirt and dropping his sweat pants next to the bed. Jensen stopped next to the bed with a bemused smile. Jared pushed himself back onto the bed.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Jensen said with a slight shake of his head. He couldn’t take his eyes off Jared, off the acres of golden skin, long legs, flat belly, muscular shoulders and chest. Jared looked a little uncertain, but he smiled, cheeks dimpling slightly, and he reached out to Jensen.

“Jen?”

Jensen pulled off the threadbare NIN t-shirt. Jared’s eyes traveled over Jensen’s body, and he licked his lips. When Jensen made no move to take his jeans off, Jared slid forward on the bed, unbuttoned them, and pulled the zipper down. Jensen leaned down and kissed him, sucked on his bottom lip, as Jared’s hand slid into his jeans and stroked lightly over Jensen’s cock. The wet fabric where precome had soaked through his briefs was cool and clinging to the head. It pulled at the delicate skin each time Jared rubbed over the fabric.

“You gonna do somethin’ with that, darlin’,” Jensen growled.

Jared’s lips quirked against his, and Jared’s hand moved away. He tugged Jensen’s jeans off his hips. Jensen stepped back and kicked them off; then, slid out of his briefs. Jared’s hands reached out for him.

“Come here,” Jared said. He took Jensen’s hand and pulled him along as he slid back on the bed. Jensen climbed up between his legs and leaned over him. “Come down here,” Jared said and pulled them chest to chest and not coincidentally cock to cock. Jensen loved Jared’s heat, his hard muscles and soft skin – all the contrasts of the man. He was sometimes surprised by it. He’d loved Alta, had loved women, but they were all soft, inside and out, but men, especially this man, was a wonderful, exciting, arousing mix of hard and soft, gentle and harsh. How could he have ever thought it was wrong or shameful?

Jensen nipped at Jared’s jaw line, and kissed along his neck, his collarbone, sucked a nipple between his lips just to feel Jared arch against him and hear him gasp. Jensen’s hand slid down Jared’s side and his thumb caught in the cut of Jared’s hip. He scraped his teeth over Jared’s ribs and across his stomach. Jared shivered, and his fingers carded through Jensen’s hair as though seeking purchase.

He wanted to make this last, but he couldn’t keep himself from touching Jared’s leaking prick. He wrapped his fingers around the base, lapped at the precome beading on the crown, and looked up at Jared whose eyes were wide and lust blown. Jensen swirled the tip of tongue around the edge of the head, across the glans, teased at the slit. Jared’s head fell back, and his hips twitched up.

“God, Jen, killing me,” he panted.

“Mmm,” Jensen hummed as he sucked the head between his lips. And this, how Jensen loved the feel of the crown, soft like the flesh of a eggplant but the skin so delicate; he sank down taking as much of the shaft as he could. He continued to take it in until the crown pushed into his throat, and he moved in quick, short movements sending the crown rubbing over the back of his tongue again and again while his fist slid up the base of the shaft. He could feel Jared tensing and pulled off.

“What? Fuck, Jen, please …”

“Shh.” Jensen pushed Jared’s legs up and back as he licked and sucked at his balls before letting his tongue wander over Jared’s perineum and around the puckered, pink flesh surrounding his hole.

“Jen, Jen, Jen,” Jared babbled.

Jensen licked and pushed at the furled hole inhaling Jared’s musky warmth. He was flat on his stomach now and his hips rolled against the sheets seeking some friction for his leaking cock. Jesus, Jared was the hottest thing he’d ever had, and he’d had more than his share.

He pulled Jared’s ass cheeks apart with his thumbs and pushed his tongue in farther, licking and curling it against the smooth inside walls, teasing open the tight muscles. Jared was squirming and moaning and clutching at the sheets.

“Fuck, fuck me,” he begged, and yeah, Jensen couldn’t wait anymore. He crawled back up the bed and grabbed the lube from the bedside table. He poured a little on his fingers and pushed a finger slowly inside. There was no twitch of tension this time. He was already pretty open from Jensen’s tongue. He started to push another finger in.

“No, no, just fuck me, Jen,” Jared begged, and his fingers dug into Jensen’s arms.

“Don’t want to hurt you,” Jensen said.

“You won’t. I’m ready. Come on, Jen.”

Jensen pressed a kiss to the inside of Jared’s knee, slicked his cock and slowly began to push into the soft, tight heat. It was so good, so right, it knocked the breath from his lungs, and seeing it, the way Jared took him in, swallowed him, their bodies becoming one, he knew that he couldn’t ever not have this. Jared had to be his. He wouldn’t have it any other way.

Jared’s hips came up off the bed, rising to meet Jensen’s in need and urgency. Jensen pushed a little deeper. He could feel Jared’s blood pumping all around him, under his hands and the flesh of the thighs pressed against his ribs, in the flesh gripping his cock. He was almost dizzy with the warm animal scent rising off Jared’s flesh, and he wanted to taste. His heart sped up at the very thought of hot, rich blood flooding his mouth, and he swallowed hard, tried to push the need down.

Jared’s fingers dug into this arms. “Jen, Jen,” he gasped. Jensen opened his eyes to the sight of the long, elegant throat exposed to him. Jared’s chin was up and to the side. “Please, Jen.”

Jensen was overwhelmed with another lust – blood lust. He pulled Jared up onto his lap as he sat back on his heels. Jared continued rutting shallowly as Jensen sank his teeth into Jared’s neck. There wasn’t any finesse in it, but the immediate rush that followed erased any concern for that because Jared’s blood was like high octane racing fuel mixed with the purest methamphetamine from the high desert.

On some level, Jensen’s knew his fingers were digging into Jared’s ribs and his mouth was locked over the wound on his neck, but he was lost inside Jared – in his veins and heart as the fuel ignited and the flames swept down his throat, into his lungs, through his body, and out along his limbs before imploding and being sucked back into this chest and belly and groin like a back draft. 

Jensen was burning up and so was Jared. They were sweat slick and panting and moving together as one animal – pulling apart and moving together in perfect sync. Sweat slick skin sliding, fingers gripping and slipping over arms and sides and backs. Jared’s powerful thigh muscles flexed against Jensen as their hips fell together again and again, and they were losing themselves to their bodies, to heat and tension and pleasure – all of it fueled by lust and need and blood. Jensen had pulled his mouth from Jared’s neck and gave it one last long lick before kissing him deeply and reaching between them to stroke Jared’s cock. 

“Come on, darlin’, come for me,” Jensen growled. Jared’s forehead fell to Jensen’s shoulder and he spilled hot and slick over Jensen’s hand. His muscles clenched around Jensen’s cock and Jensen cried out and dug his fingers into Jared’s ass cheeks, pulling them together as he rode out his orgasm.

“Oh God, I missed you,” Jensen whispered.

“Yeah?” Jared said. He was still astride Jensen’s lap, and they both sat with their heads on one another’s shoulders.

“Yeah, yes.” Jensen’s tongue flicked out and swiped some more blood from Jared’s skin. “I didn’t fuck Evan when I was gone – not until you quit calling.”

Jared sat up and lifted Jensen’s chin. Hazel eyes searched green.

“You didn’t?”

Jensen shook his head. “No. I took blood from him, but no, I … no.” 

“Why?”

“You don’t know?” Jensen dropped his head.

“Tell me, Jen.” Jared leaned his forehead against Jensen’s.

“I just want you.” Jensen looked back up then, and Jared’s lovely kiss bruised lips pulled into a smile.

“You got me, you know?”

Jensen tipped his head up for a kiss that had Jared licking his own blood off Jensen’s lips and chin. 

“This is going to take some getting used to,” Jensen said.

Jared chuckled. “Yeah, but we have a starting point, right? We both want this, don’t we?”

Jensen smiled then. “Absolutely.” He gave Jared another quick kiss. “But, Jared…”

“Yeah?”

“I need you to get off my lap now.”

Jared laughed then and slid back onto the bed. “I need a shower.”

“Yeah, me too, but maybe not together.”

“Why not together?” Jared asked as he rolled from the bed and grabbed some clean briefs from the dresser.

“You know what that would lead to,” Jensen said. He laid back against the pillows and folded his arms behind his head. Jared stopped to ogle him – all that pale skin sprinkled with freckles. Green eyes ogled Jared right back.

“Oh, I almost forgot. Mama invited us to come down for the weekend.”

Jensen sprang into a sitting position like an old wind up toy. “What?”

“I said …”

“I heard you. What did you tell her?”

Jared shrugged. “I told her we’d try. You gotta meet the family sometime, Jen.”

Jensen took a deep breath and fell back against the pillows. “Yeah, I, yeah, I suppose so, but …”

“It’ll be fine,” Jared said. “They’ll love you.” He was leaning naked against the bathroom door frame, and Jensen couldn’t help but smile at how different he was from the boy who had cringed from him on this very bed just weeks ago. Jared pushed himself up and went into the bathroom.

How much would Jared’s family see the change and what would they think of it, Jensen wondered. How much would they hate him for it.

^^o^^

It all happened so fast, for most people it would be a blur, but not for Jensen. He remembered every detail from the Arizona license plate on the black SUV two car lengths ahead to the How’s my driving? Call: 1-800-555-5964 on the back of the flatbed semi in the passing lane. They were on the interstate only about 20 minutes out of Dallas and trying to get their story straight.

“Just tell them that you’re a bartender,” Jared said.

Jensen raised an eyebrow skeptically. 

“What?” Jared laughed with a glance. “You’ve been in enough bars to know how that works. What else are you going to say? You work at a blood bank, maybe?”

Jensen pursed his lips. “Funny, you think, you’re funny.”

“Just relax, fuck …” 

It all seemed to happen in the blink of an eye, and maybe it did – the front driver’s side tire blew on the SUV, which swerved into the semi, striking it on the duel back wheels of the tractor. The SUV ricocheted off the semi, skewed sideways and rolled down the highway ahead of them while the tractor trailer swerved toward the median before the driver corrected and brought it back into the passing lane. That’s when the load of steel broke loose and began tumbling into the lane ahead of Jared’s truck, but Jared’s reflexes were good, and he cut quickly behind the semi toward the shoulder along the median.

“Son of a …” Jared started to say when a piece of steel ripped from the fender of the SUV bounced off the pavement and through the windshield of the truck. He made a small hurt sound just before the tires of the truck left the pavement and hit the gravel shoulder. Jensen experienced zero gravity for a split second as the truck went air born and then was thrown against the shoulder strap as the truck came down and slid and rolled with almost animal screeches of pain, crunching of bone. Jensen knew that wasn’t right. It was just metal and plastic, but he smelled blood. Jared’s blood. 

He twisted around in the seat. The truck had surprisingly come to rest upright although the roof was somewhat smashed. They were both strapped into their seats, but blood was oozing from Jared’s chest, and when Jensen put his hand there, he could feel the sharp edge of metal that protruded.

Jared’s eyelids fluttered. “Jen.”

“Shh, you’re going to be okay.” 

“No, Jen, don’t wanna die.” His hand came to rest weakly on Jensen’s arm.

“You won’t.”

“Promise me.” Jensen could hear blood gurgle in Jared’s lungs as he spoke.

“Promise, I won’t let you die.” 

Jesus fucking Christ, now, he had to do it right now. He turned Jared’s head to the side.  
“Hey! You all right in there?” A voice called from outside the vehicle, and there were people all around them and then there were sirens and cops and paramedics and people and people and people and Jensen wanted to grab Jared and run but there were too many people around them and they thought he was just panicked friend and they kept trying to reassure him and they took Jared away in the ambulance and him as well because it turned out he was bleeding and he wanted to laugh at that but he was crying and now …

There were hushed voices in the hall and the sound of the respirator making Jared breathe. Jensen couldn’t do anything but stand there and listen to Jared’s heart beat weakly. 

“Why don’t you do it?” a voice behind him said. He knew the voice from the phone. Jared’s mother.

Jared’s family had arrived while he was still in surgery. They’d introduced themselves, and he’d explained what had happened. That was all. They sat together in a little group and him apart. What did they have to say after all? Talk about an awkward meeting.

When Jared was brought to ICU, his family gathered around the doctor for information while Jensen had slipped into the room the moment the nurse left, but it hadn’t gone unnoticed by Jared’s mother.

He turned toward her but remained at Jared’s side. “What?”

“You can, can’t you? Save him?” She stepped to the end of the bed.

“You don’t think the doctors can?”

“No,” she said watching the machine breathe for her son. “Do you?”

He shook his head. “No.”

“But you can. I know who you are; what you are.”

He licked his lips. “Do you?”

She nodded. “Jensen is an unusual name. I remembered Jared coming across it when he was doing the family genealogy. I thought it was just a coincidence, but then I saw you in the waiting room last night, and …” She looked away, and he could have sworn she shuddered. She squared her shoulders and looked him in the eye again. “Jared couldn’t have known it, but his grandmother kept your wedding photo tucked in her journal. I knew you right away.”

“And who do you think I am?”

“You’re the bloody man,” she said quietly.

He swallowed. “I see. Do the others know?”

“No, they’d think I lost my mind without the proof in front of them, wouldn’t they? How long has Jared known?”

“From the beginning. He dug me up.” Jensen’s lips quirked.

She huffed out a breath. “Little fool.” Her lips set in a grim line. “So why don’t you do it?”

He glanced at Jared, so pale, bruised, heart beat so faint he could barely hear it over the sound of the respirator. “I can’t.”

“What? Why not?”

He looked back at her. “He has to drink my blood. He can’t do that with that thing in his throat, and I can’t pull it out if he can’t breathe on his own. “

Her face seemed to crumple and tears filled her eyes. “He can’t die.”

“No,” Jensen agreed. “Then you have to convince the doctors to let him wake up. I can’t do anything until he does.”

She pressed her hand to her mouth and nodded. 

^^o^^

Almost 36 hours later, Jensen was slipping into Jared’s room. There was the 3 a.m. hush to the hospital – the squeak of soft soled shoes on tile, muffled voices, beeping machines – but the whoosh of the respirator was gone. Jared lay asleep, natural sleep.

His mother had cried, cajoled, demanded, thrown fits and then made the impassioned plea to let her speak to him one last time before he died. The rest of the family tried to reassure her, but the doctors caved because they knew she was right. He was dying. His heart was too damaged to go on, and there was no donor heart available. 

Jensen eased himself down on the edge of the bed and stroked Jared’s cheek. Jared’s lashes fluttered as he fought his way out of sleep.

“Jen.”

“Shh, listen to me, darlin’. Your heart is dying. The doctors can’t fix it.” He lightly kissed Jared’s cool lips. “Do you want me turn you?”

“Yes, Jen, I told you.”

“I know, but I want to be sure.” He tucked a towel under Jared’s head to protect the pillow from any blood that might drip. “Ready?”

Jared nodded.

Jensen leaned down and licked a stripe over Jared’s throat and came away with something bitter, antiseptic, on his tongue. He pressed his lips back over the spot, felt a weak pulse. 

“Jen?”

“Hmm?” He pressed a kiss below Jared’s ear.

“Will it hurt?”

“Only for a moment.”

“The monitors.”

“Right.” Jensen took the monitor off Jared’s finger and quickly slipped it on his own. Pressing another kiss to Jared’s throat, he whispered, “I love you,” before sinking his teeth into his lover’s skin. He bit deeper and harder than he ever had, and Jared’s body tensed in pain and surprise. He whimpered.

Blood, life, gushed into Jensen’s mouth, strong at first, but quickly ebbing with the weak beat of Jared’s heart. Jensen continued to suck at the wound, pulling every drop he could from the artery and feeling drunk with it, his own veins throbbed almost painfully with it. He could feel and hear Jared’s heart beating slower and slower. Until … Jensen pulled away with one last lap at the wound.

He opened the small, but razor-sharp penknife in his hand and with the other tipped Jared’s head back.

“Open wide, love,” he whispered and cut across his own throat with a short, but deep cut to the artery. Blood sprayed from the wound, and he pulled Jared’s mouth against it. Within seconds Jared’s lips were locked at Jensen’s throat with such suction that Jensen felt it pull at his heart. He could hear a pounding growing louder, Jared’s heart, and his hands came up – one at the back of Jensen’s neck holding him in place, the other around his ribs.

Jared began to moan as the blood poured into him, and Jensen could feel himself begin to weaken. He needed to stop this. Yes, he’d give Jared every drop if he needed it, but his heart sounded strong now.

“Jared,” he choked out. He pushed against him. “Stop.” Finally, he got his fingers tangled in Jared’s hair and pulled his face away.

Jared’s eyes went wide. “Jesus, I … sorry.”

“It’s okay. You’re overwhelmed at first.”

“Yeah, yeah, I guess.” His eyes flicked to the door. “Jen, you’re covered in blood.”

“Yeah, you too.” Jensen got up and tossed a new hospital gown onto the bed. “First, let’s get you into that. Your miraculous recovery is going to be hard enough to explain without you being covered in blood.”

“Right.” Between the two of them, they managed to get Jared into a clean gown and tucked back into the bed. Jensen stuffed the bloody gown and towel into a bag along with his bloody shirt. He washed them both off with a washcloth which also went into the bag. Jensen put on a clean t-shirt he’d brought along.

“I should get out of here,” he said.

“No.” Jared grabbed his wrist.

“Jared, darlin’.” Jensen sat back down on the edge of the bed. “You aren’t supposed to have visitors this time of night.

“Everything is really bright and sharp and colorful and … like, like that time I did acid, you know? I can hear people’s hearts beating…”

“You did acid?”

“Jesus, that isn’t the point,” Jared said. He squeezed Jensen’s fingers. “Is it always like this?”

“When you drink, yeah. It will fade with time.” Jensen tried to sound reassuring.

“How long?”

“You’re pretty dosed right now since it’s my blood, so … You probably won’t sleep tonight. You’ll be wound up for a few hours. Sometime tomorrow it will fade.”

“And you’re going to leave me alone like this? Seriously, Jen?”

Jensen sighed. “No. Of course not, but I need to get rid of this stuff, okay? I’ll be back.”

“Soon.”

Jensen kissed his forehead. “Soon.”

^^o^^


	9. Chapter 9

Jared wanted to draw Jensen back to him and put his lips to Jensen’s throat and taste drink consume … He could feel blood rushing through his veins. He felt flushed and exhilarated and high. Jesus Christ, he hadn’t felt anything near like this since that rave junior year at UT. He couldn’t stop staring at the pink, plastic pitcher on the bedside table, the shadow falling across the angle of the lid, the jagged little edge to the spout. Everything looked so bright and crisp, like HD. He giggled and slapped a hand over his mouth. 

He listened for sounds in the hall but was so bombarded by the shuffle of papers and mumbled voices and heartbeats and the whir and beep of hundreds of machines that he couldn’t distinguish what was right outside the door and what was at the nurses’ station. Then, there were footsteps right outside the door, and he leaned back as Jensen slipped into the room. 

“Jen,” he said and leaned forward with a hand outstretched.

Jensen frowned in concern. “What is it?” 

He came to the bedside and Jared’s eyes widened. “Oh my God, are you okay?” Jared asked. He grasped Jensen’s hand and pulled him closer. His full lips were pale, almost colorless, and his skin looked transparent, making his freckles stand out.

“I’m fine.”

“I took too much.”

“Jared, I’m fine. Just need a little pick me up is all.” 

“Yeah?” Jared squeezed Jensen’s hand.

“Yes.” He pushed Jared’s hair back from his face. “Now, what do you need to know?”

Jared sighed and looked around. “The sound mostly is driving me crazy. I can hear too much, you know. I can’t distinguish where things are coming from. It’s so loud. It’s overwhelming.”

Jensen nodded. “It must be horrible. The world was a much quieter place when I was made, but waking up here, now, was uncomfortable until I got used to it, and you will too. All you can do is try to relax. Don’t try to take it all in. Maybe when you get out of here, we’ll go somewhere quieter for awhile, hmm?”

“Yeah,” Jared nodded. “Yeah, that would be great. It just … I keep hearing heartbeats. I hear yours and …”

“I know.”

“Do you? You know that I want to …” He stopped and licked his lips. He was twisting Jensen’s fingers in his own. 

“Yes, I know what you want, but you have to learn to control it. You can. You don’t want to become the kind of monster I was at first.”

“Were you?” Jared’s gaze met a green icy glare.

“Yes, I was. I killed people, and there’s no reason for it – no reason to come to hate yourself.” He stroked Jared’s cheek. “Let me help you through this. It won’t always be easy. I’m warning you now. I …” Jensen bit his lip. 

“What?”

“I wanted to talk to you about all of this before you made the decision to join me. I wanted you to know what you were facing. Jared the need you felt for me before, it will pale with what you feel now for blood. It will be difficult to resist it.”

“Then I’m screwed because I sure as hell couldn’t resist you,” Jared said with a rueful smile. 

The corners of Jensen’s full lips curled. “Jared,” he chuckled. “This isn’t a joke. I’m deadly serious. Promise me that in all of this, even if you come to hate me for awhile …”

“I could never hate you.”

“That isn’t what you said a couple days ago.”

“Hyperbole,” Jared said. He felt giddy, and he knew it was the blood washing through him, but he was having a hell of a time following the conversation when all he could do was watch Jensen’s mouth and imagine his lips on Jared’s body like they had been that morning – on his neck, his chest, kissing over his belly, wrapped around his cock.

“Are you listening to me at all?” Jensen growled.

Jared leaned in and pressed his lips to Jensen’s, licked at the seam and into the hot, wet cavern of his mouth. Jensen’s fingers tangled in his Jared’s hair, and Jared’s arms wrapped around Jensen’s shoulders. 

Jared tried to push away the pounding of Jensen’s heartbeat in his ears, but beneath it was the soft susurrus of the blood through his veins. Jared broke the kiss and pressed his forehead to Jensen’s. He breathed deeply trying to calm himself.

“Is it bad?” Jensen asked.

“I hear the blood in your veins.”

“Mm, my heartbeat. Like a song that you can’t help dancing to.”

“That’s rather poetic for the fact that I want to rip your throat out,” Jared said, almost choking on the words.

Jensen took Jared’s face in his hands and searched his face. “I know, I know. How you feel now, I felt ten times more in that grave when you found me. You can resist this until we can get you something.”

“You think?”

“Yes, darlin’. I know. Anyway, I can protect myself against you. I’m still stronger.” 

Jensen’s eyes sparkled in challenge. “But you have to promise to not go off on your own. I can help you channel this need, to not get out of control. Promise me that – no matter how angry you may get with me for doing this to you.”

“I asked for this. I have no reason to blame you,” Jared said.

“Yeah, remember that when you want to really rip my throat out,” Jensen murmured.  
Jared flinched as he felt a strange twinge in his chest. His body knitting itself back together, he supposed. “I think I’m healing.”

“Yeah, we can’t let you stay here too much longer.”

There was a flicker of movement behind Jensen as the door opened, and Jared’s mother, Sherri, walked in. Jensen stood but remained beside Jared.

“So, it’s done?” she asked quietly as she approached the foot of the bed.

“Mama?” Jared leaned forward toward his mother but looked up at Jensen.

“She knows, love.”

Sherri turned hard eyes on Jensen. “I’d like to speak to my son alone.”

Jensen started to move away, but Jared caught his hand. “No, Jen.”

“It’s all right. I’ll be right outside the door.”

Neither Sherri nor Jared moved or spoke until the door glided shut behind Jensen. Then, she started to move around the side of the bed. Jared pushed himself back against the pillows and held up a hand.

“No, stay down there,” he pleaded.

A tear ran down her cheek. “Tell me I didn’t make a mistake,” she said. “I just couldn’t bear to lose you.”

He shook his head. She knew. She agreed to let Jensen turn him. “How did you know?” he asked.

“There’s a photo of him. A wedding photo.” She sniffed and swiped at her cheek. “That doesn’t matter now. I …”

Jared bit his lip. “Mama, you aren’t to blame. I told him this is what I wanted before the ambulance came.” No need for her to know that he’d agreed to it days ago, had asked for it.

She shook her head. “He couldn’t have done it without me. I got them to take you off the ventilator. I made this possible. Was I wrong, Jared? Were we wrong?”

“Mama…”

“I know he didn’t bring a curse on the family. I’m not a fool, but he did horrible things. You won’t … I can’t live with myself if I’ve turned you into …” She shook her head and covered her mouth with her palm. 

“Mama, Jesus, no, Jensen isn’t going to let that happen.”

“Then why can’t I hug you?”

I can do this, Jared thought. I can reassure her. I can not listen to her heartbeat. I can ignore the smell of blood right there under her skin. 

“You can. You can hug me, Mama.”

She came around the bed, sank down beside him, and wrapped her arms around him. It was so familiar – the smell of her face powder and the way she patted his shoulder – but the smell of blood was so close, right there millimeters from his lips. His mouth flooded with saliva, and he swallowed hard, sucked in a breath. He squeezed his eyes shut and counted to ten.

“I love you, Mama,” he whispered. He opened his eyes, and Jensen was standing just inside the door watching him.

“We need to get you out of here,” Jensen said and moved forward.

Jared realized he was having trouble letting go even though Sherri tried to move away when she heard Jensen. He pressed his face into her hair, which smelled like strawberry shampoo, and that helped. Anything, anything but blood. He released her and sat back. Jensen was standing right next to them, and Sherri stood abruptly and moved away.

Jesus, she has no idea who the dangerous one is here, Jared thought. He looked at Jensen and realized Jensen was probably thinking the same thing.

“Here, I brought some clothes for you,” Jensen said and handed him a paper sack.

“You want him to just walk out?” Sherri said.

“What would you like him to do? At some point the nurses are going to realize the incision is gone and then someone will declare a miracle, and then …”

“A reporter from Weekly World News will sneak in,” Jared said. “He’s right, Mama, I have to get out of here.”

“What am I supposed to tell everyone?” Sherri asked.

“That’s not my problem.”

“Jensen.” Jared’s mouth dropped open, but he met a steely gaze. He knew Jensen was just thinking he had his own problems – Jared – to deal with. “I don’t know, Mama. Tell ‘em I died.”

“What?” Sherri said, and Jensen snorted out a laugh.

“Okay, that won’t work either.” He pulled his jeans on with shaking hands. Her heart rate had ratcheted up, and he felt like a junkie two seconds from a fix. “Get me out of here, Jen.” He caught Jensen’s eye.

“Look,” Jensen said to Sherri, “we need you to go to the nurse’s station and make a diversion in three minutes.”

“What kind of diversion?”

“Tell them your son is missing,” Jensen said.

“But he …”

“It will be the truth.”

^^o^^  
Jared became aware of pain as though his arm was being wrenched from his shoulder and blood thick and coppery in his mouth, wet and sticky on his chin.

“Stop,” Jensen commanded low and menacing, and Jared knew instantly that his shoulder was about to be dislocated. “Let go.”

Jared’s free hand opened releasing the weight he’d been holding. Jensen spun him around and slammed him against the wall, and his forearm pressed against Jared’s throat cutting off his breath. 

“When I tell you no, you stop.” Jensen’s eyes were dark, his lips curled back in anger. “You listen to me, do you understand? Look at the mess you made.” The shorter man stepped back to reveal a body with short auburn curls, blue scrub pants and a top covered in flowers – one of the ICU nurses lying on the floor of the stairwell.

The stairwell at the hospital. Jared looked around wildly. The last thing he remembered was following Jensen out of his hospital room, and now this …

“How? I don’t remember,” he gasped.

“Because you didn’t fucking listen to me when I told you to not go near her. Come on.” Jensen grabbed his arm and pulled him toward the door.

Jared stalled. “But she … is she …”

“No, she’ll be fine. She won’t remember a thing.” Jensen opened the door to the parking garage and motioned him forward.

“She won’t?” Jared couldn’t take his eyes off the figure like a broken doll on the concrete floor.

“Do you?”

Jared shook his head and followed. Jensen peered out the door and looked around the garage before leading him to a bright, red pick up with the Ford logo.

“Get in.” Jensen’s voice is low and hard, and Jared didn’t dare question the command, but where the hell did this truck come from, and yeah, Jensen’s driving. Jared climbed in the passenger seat without comment or question. 

Jensen dug around in the backseat for a moment and tossed Jared a package of wet wipes. “Clean yourself up,” he said and started the truck. 

With a squeal of tires echoing against the concrete walls, Jensen took them onto the sunlit streets, and Jared didn’t know whether to be frightened or exhilarated at the quick, precise movements of the large vehicle in the downtown streets. Maybe it was Jensen’s superior reflexes that kept them from running over pedestrians and smaller vehicles or maybe it was that the incredibly loud roar of the vehicle made everyone get out of the way, but Jared didn’t begin to relax until the streets widened out and traffic thinned somewhat. Still, the sound was almost more than he could bear.

Jared glanced at Jensen whose jaw was still clenched and his knuckles were white on the wheel. Jared sighed and tossed the blood stained wet wipes on the floor. He opened his mouth but shut it again knowing that Jensen was on edge and not wanting to know what would happen if he spoke. They rode in silence until the road petered to a two-lane blacktop with scrub and desert stretching away on all sides.

It was then Jared realized this was no ordinary Ford pick-up. This was a Hennessey VelociRaptor 475, and on an ordinary day Jared would be grinning over it. They’d seen one on Top Gear, and it was awesomely fast. Jensen was testing that theory, and Jared wanted to suggest that a guy without a driver’s license might not want to be driving 95 mph. The last thing they wanted was a run in with a redneck cop, but that was not what he needed to say.

Jared sighed and bit the bullet. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“Sorry?” Jensen said with a raised eyebrow.

“I know. I know that’s inadequate.”

“You almost killed her,” Jensen said. The muscle jumped in his jaw, and he tapped the brakes and wrenched the wheel sending the truck onto a dirt track to the left with barely any deceleration. “Would have, if I hadn’t been there to stop you.”

“Fuck!” Jared exclaimed and braced his hand against the roof of the truck. The vehicle flew over the dirt kicking up a plume behind it, and when Jensen took it over a rise it went air born. Coming back down on the front tires Jared was pushed against his shoulder harness. Jensen braked hard and the truck slewed sideways and came to stop in a cloud of dust.

“I made a mistake. I never should have agreed to this,” Jensen said and let his forehead fall forward against the steering wheel. “I can’t control you. I thought I could, but fuck.” He slammed his fist into the dash leaving a crack in the plastic.

Jared twisted sideways in the seat. “Jen …” he began but the other man had already thrown the door open and was walking stiffly away from the truck.

Jared jumped out of the truck and rounded it, running after Jensen’s retreating figure. He could see the tension in the set of Jensen’s shoulders, and he wanted nothing more than to make peace. Despite the slight panic and the blood fueled high he was still riding, he just wanted to grab Jensen and kiss him. Because in all of this, he could take in so much – the broad shoulders, slim hips, gently bowed legs – and he just wanted, needed that, him. And he didn’t think, he grabbed Jensen’s arm and brought them both to a halt. Jensen jerked his arm out of Jared’s grasp.

“Jen,” he said, and then it hit him. “You regret it. You wish you’d …”

“No,” Jensen said. “I didn’t say that.” He ran a hand over his mouth. “I, Jared, I’m scared.” He looked accusingly at the toes of his boots.

Jared’s hands reached out, trembled, and dropped to his sides. “I, I need you.”

Jensen nodded emphatically. “Yeah, yeah,” he said and looked up. His gaze was steady, and he ran a hand along Jared’s arm down to his hand. “Jared, I’m scared for you; that I won’t be able to get you through this without … I’m scared that I’ve …” 

Jensen ran a hand up through his hair and turned away.

“Jen, you did what you had to do.”

“No.” He turned back and his eyes glittered with tears. “I didn’t have to. I could have let nature take its course, but couldn’t. I couldn’t lose you, and she couldn’t lose you. But we have. Don’t you see that? You aren’t who you were.”

“I am, Jen.” Jared spoke softly, reached out and pulled Jensen toward him. “I am. I’m still me.”

“Are you?” Jensen put his hands on Jared’s hips. “You accused me recently of changing you. That was nothing. This, Jesus, what happened back at the hospital … I know you feel okay now, on this blood high, but when you come down and start thinking about what’s happened.” Jensen shut his eyes for a moment. “You may hate me. Hell, you may hate your own mother for what we’ve done to you.”

“No …”

“If you hate me, I, I’ll have to deal with that, but what’s important is getting you through this so you learn to control it, how to live in society with it.”

“Please, stop.” Jared took Jensen’s face in his hands. “We’ll get through this, you and me. I’m sorry for what happened back at the hospital. I will listen to you from now on. I promise.” But he wasn’t so sure. He couldn’t remember why he didn’t then. “Why can’t I remember what happened?”

Jensen shook his head. “I don’t know. It happened to me a few times at first to. Maybe, you haven’t turned completely or your mind is trying to adjust. I don’t know. It’s just another reason for you to not go off on your own.”

Jared pulled him close and kissed his temple. “The last thing I want is to be away from you.” He kissed Jensen again just in front of his ear and then below it. He slid his hand under Jensen’s shirt and up his back.

Jensen chuckled and pressed a kiss to Jared’s neck. “We’re standing in the middle of the desert.”

“Yeah,” Jared said and then realized what the words actually meant. “Yeah, right, we should …”

Jensen’s arms loosened around him, and he stepped back. “Yeah, come on. We don’t have much farther to go.” He took Jared’s hand and pulled him toward the truck.

“Where’d you get that? You steal it?”

“Of course I didn’t steal it. It was a gift.”

“A gift? Someone gave you a $50,000 truck?” 

Jensen shrugged. “A rich kid. No great loss to him, I guess.”

Jared dropped Jensen’s hand, and he flushed hot all over. “That must have been one hell of a fuck,” he said. 

Jensen had kept walking and shot back over his shoulder, “Yeah, I guess it was.”

Jared stood rooted to the ground, fists clenching and unclenching, watching Jensen walk away and taking in every movement, every detail – the way the morning sun glinted off the short brush of hair at the nape of his neck, the stretch of navy cotton over his shoulders, the way his jeans hung off his slim hips – and fuck, no, that’s was his. No one else’s. Jared caught up to him in a matter of moments. He spun the smaller man around and slammed him against the side of the truck.

Jared heard a growl or maybe it was a roar from his own throat, whatever it was Jensen’s eyes went wide before Jared’s mouth came down over his, and it was a battleground of hard, sharp teeth, claiming lips, twisting tongues seeking territory. Jensen was pushing against Jared’s shoulders but Jared pushed back.

“No,” he said breaking the kiss. “Mine.” He felt rage simmering, pooling in his gut. “You’re mine.”

Jensen slumped against the truck and pulled Jared close. “Yeah, yeah, I am. You know, I am.”

As suddenly as it came, the rage drained from him and tears burned in his eyes. “Oh God, Jen.”

Jensen held him and covered his face and neck with kisses. “Shh, it’s okay. Look, we just have a little ways to go, and then we’ll sit down and talk all this out, okay?” he asked against Jared’s ear, and when Jared nodded, he continued. “For now, darlin’, whatever happened before doesn’t matter.” He pushed Jared back far enough to look up into his eyes. “Okay? You and me, this is a new start, and there’s no one else. I promise.”

Jared leaned back in, pressing Jensen against the truck, and kissed his forehead and cheek before getting to his lips – just his lips, soft and slow. He felt shaky and a little panicked. “I’ve never felt like that before.”

“Oh darlin’, I wish I could say it won’t happen again, but you’re a whole new animal now.” Jensen stroked his hair. “I’m going to be there for you every minute.”

Jared nodded again. “Okay, okay.”

“Come on, let’s go.”

“Yeah.” Jared let go, but trailed his hand down Jensen’s arm, letting go of his fingertips at the last moment. He walked around to the passenger side of the truck and got in. Jensen was already starting the vehicle and had it rolling before Jared could get his seatbelt latched.

“So,” Jensen said with a glance and a smirk, “can I keep the truck?”

^^o^^

In the next 30 miles, they’d passed an abandoned Airstream along the blacktop and just one beat up pick up on the road. The sun had arced up to almost noon when Jensen pulled into the parking lot of an old roadhouse. A closed sign hung on the door.

“They’re closed,” Jared said peering through the windshield.

“Yep, that’s why we’re here,” Jensen said.

“I don’t understand.”

“This place, Evan’s boss owns it. Just closed about a month ago, but he’d like to have someone look after it. There’s an apartment upstairs. I told Evan I could use a place to stay for awhile. So …” Jensen turned off the ignition.

“Does he know I’m here?”

Jensen shrugged. “Is there any reason he should?”

Jared’s lips compressed into a thin line. “What if he decides to come visit?”

“He won’t. I did tell him not to count on me being alone. I’d call if I wanted company.”

“Jesus, you use people, you know that?”

Jensen didn’t answer. He just swung his door open and started to get out of the truck.

“How do I know you aren’t using me?” Jared demanded.

Jensen threw his hands up in exasperation. “I’m doing this for you. Remember?”

Jared just looked away. Jensen was standing at the open driver’s side door. He leaned his arm against the door edge and peered in at Jared. 

“Are you coming or are you going to sit out here and bake in the sun?”

Jared pushed his door open and slammed it behind him. Jensen was already behind the truck opening the tonneau cover. In the bed of the truck were two large Coleman coolers and a couple duffle bags. Jared pulled a cooler forward and opened the lid.

“Blood? You stole blood from the hospital?”  
Jensen pushed the lid down and lifted the cooler. “I’ll take this one.”

“You expect us to drink that?” He grabbed the other cooler and followed Jensen toward the weathered building.

“I tried it. I prefer it body temperature, but it’ll do in a pinch.” Jensen set the cooler he was carrying down on the porch and unlocked the door.

“Is that what we’re in – a pinch?” He followed Jensen into the darkened interior and set the cooler on a worn wooden table.

“Jared, this is for training.” Jensen continued on through a swinging restaurant door into a kitchen.

“Training? What like a dog?” He trailed behind Jensen.

“Kind of.” Jensen pulled open the heavy door of a walk in cooler and set the green Coleman down. Stepping back out, he closed the door and locked it with a combination lock. 

“And I guess I don’t get the combination.” Jared leaned back against a prep table and crossed his arms.

“No.” Jensen stepped up to him and put his hands on Jared’s arms. “Look, you need to learn just how much you actually need – not want – because that’s the problem. I know, darlin’, I’ve been there. Once you understand that you don’t need to drain someone, then you can work on controlling what you want.” 

Jared looked down into mossy green depths that held him, stilled his anxiety; warm hands held him, calmed him. “How did you not drain me that first time?” he asked.

Jensen shook his head. “I hurt a lot of people, killed people, destroyed lives, and I never wanted to do that again. But when I first smelled you, tasted you, I wanted it all, every drop. Somehow though as you brought me back to life, I, I don’t know, I remembered. I didn’t want to harm you. You gave me life again and that would have been … ungrateful.”

Jared nodded. “Ungrateful.”

“You’ve come to mean a lot more to me. You do know that, don’t you? I wouldn’t have taken this on, asked you to join me, forever, Jared …”

“If?”

“If, what?” Jensen tipped his head back, eyes wide.

“Jen, please.” He ran a palm over the soft spikes of Jensen’s hair.

“If I didn’t love you?”

“Do you?”

Jensen paused and then nodded. “Yes, I do.”

“Me, too, Jen.” He pressed his cheek against Jensen’s hair and inhaled the light herbal fragrance of shampoo. “So, I, I can do this.”

“I know you can.”

^^o^^


	10. Chapter 10

The sun was falling through the old louvered shutters in narrow bands of dancing dust motes. Jensen blinked against the glare. He’d gone three days on cold blood, luncheon meat and beer. His head ached, and he was filled with a vague unease. Then, he realized Jared wasn’t in bed, and he was up in a moment. He pulled a pair of jeans on and made a sweep of the small apartment. No Jared.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he mumbled as he headed downstairs. The bar area was equally empty; so he went to the front door to see if the truck was out front. He hidden the keys, but that didn’t mean Jared hadn’t found them.

And there he was, sitting on the worn front steps in cut offs and a tank top. He was rocking back and forth with his arms wrapped around himself, and Jensen’s stomach dropped. It was the third day, and this, this was an improvement. This was Jared not waking him in a cold sweat, begging for a little like a strung out junkie. Jensen rubbed his jaw, took a deep breath, and opened the door.

Jared didn’t indicate that he’d heard the door, but he quit rocking and dropped his head to his knees. Jensen sat down beside him on the splintery wood and put an arm over his shoulders. Jared turned and pressed his face against Jensen’s chest, let Jensen stroke his hair.

“I hate you,” Jared whispered.

“I know. I told you you would.” He pressed his lips to the top of Jared’s head.

“I don’t.” Jared shook his head. “I just … this is so hard.” They sat for long moments with Jensen holding him before Jared spoke again. “You smell so good. Mmm. I don’t know if I want to fuck you or eat you.”

“You need a little fix,” Jensen said. He straightened out his legs as though to get up.

“I need you.” Jared raised up to look Jensen in the eye. “Do you think we can drink each other’s blood?”

“I don’t know,” Jensen said warily.

“We could try it.” Jared gave him one of those pleading looks that always wormed its way under Jensen’s skin, but not this time. Fuck, he was not going to give in to that look this time.

“No, we don’t know what affect it would have.”

“But you know you wanna find out.”

“Maybe someday when you’re more in control, but for now we …”

Just like that Jared was on him, pushing him down onto his back, hot breath on his neck and teeth snapping a hair’s breadth from his skin. Fuck, no, he wasn’t getting away with that shit. Jensen broke Jared’s gripped, brought a leg up and flipped them. He pinned Jared’s hands above his head and sank his teeth into the kid’s neck. This wasn’t about blood, not right now, this was about dominance, and if this newborn thought he was boss he had another thing coming.

Blood flooded Jensen’s mouth, and holy fuck, holy fucking fuck, if human blood was like wine, this was like the finest single barrel bourbon. This was heaven, this was a forest fire, no, this was a pyroclastic flow that blasted through Jensen obliterating everything but the pure, dark, thick pleasure flowing through him. Jensen sucked hard at the wound and a desperate whine cut through the red fog as Jared squirmed beneath him. His fingers dug into Jared’s wrists enough to leave bruises, reminders to back the fuck off. Jensen pulled off the wound with a lick across it.

“Don’t fucking move,” he said “You insolent pup. Don’t you ever challenge me again and don’t you forget who the alpha dog is. I created you, and I can fucking well take you out.” Jensen rose to his feet still straddling Jared’s hips. “Stay.”

He left Jared on the porch floor panting and wide eyed as he walked back into the roadhouse. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and went to the walk-in cooler where he retrieved a bag of Type O positive. He stopped for a moment in the dim interior of the barroom and leaned on the bar. 

“Fuck.” He sniffed. This isn’t what he wanted. He hated this, hated treating Jared that way. Jared … or whoever that was out there. He took a deep breath and went back out on the porch. He dropped the bag of blood on Jared’s chest.

Jared’s jaw jutted out and he curled his lip. “I’m not drinking that crap anymore.”

“Really?” Jensen picked it up and bit into it. After what he’d just tasted it made him want to choke, but he drank about half of it because he had a point to prove. He held the last mouthful and dropped to his knees, straddling Jared again. Leaning over him, Jensen pressed their mouths together, pushed against the seam of Jared’s lips. Jared struggled to turn his head, but Jensen fisted his hand in Jared’s hair until he had no choice but to take the mouthful of blood. The struggle lasted only a moment more before Jared’s mouth opened like a baby bird’s, and then he was sucking on Jensen’s tongue and moaning. 

“Good boy,” Jensen said and handed him the bag of blood, which Jared sucked down in seconds.

“It was better coming warm from your mouth,” he complained. 

Jensen smirked. “Would you like another?”

Jared sighed. “Yeah, please. Can I sit up now?”

“Of course, if you’re not going to attack me again.”

Jared nodded, but caught Jensen’s wrist as he started to rise. “I’m sorry, Jen.”

Jensen sighed. “I know. I know you are, darlin’.” He held out his hand to Jared and pulled him to his feet. “But I meant what I said. Don’t try that shit again.”

Jared hung his head and nodded. 

“Okay, go upstairs. I’ll get you another juice bag.”

^^o^^

Jared laid down on the bed and ran his hands through his hair. He kept replaying what had just happened in his head. What he’d done – going for Jensen’s throat – he hadn’t thought about it. He hadn’t planned it. He just thought about it and – so maybe that was it – knowing when he was about to imagine something he shouldn’t do, but how the hell do you do that? Jensen was right. He knew that much. He was out of control as it was. The last thing he needed was to drink more of Jensen’s blood. That had to be a bad idea because the look on Jensen’s face when he’d pulled away had said it all.

Jared was half hard then. In the past, whenever Jensen had drank from him, sex had been involved, and now, fuck, after that bite … Jensen getting all toppy and, yeah, his bite still had that affect on Jared. He slid his hand into his shorts and gripped his cock, gave it a tug. His hips jerked in response. Jensen’s face when he’d pulled away – eyes lust blown and lips red with blood. He looked so debauched and a little stunned.

Jensen walked into the bedroom with a bag of blood in his hand and stopped cold at the sight of Jared with his hand down his pants. He licked his lips.

“See somethin’ you like?” Jared said.

“You want this?” Jensen held out the bag of dark liquid.

Jared nodded and held out his free hand. “Want you,” he said.

Jensen raised an eyebrow.

Jared shook his head as he bit into the bag and sucked it dry while he continued stroking his cock. He tossed the empty bag in the direction of the trash can. “Not like that.” He pushed his shorts down around his thighs and his flushed cock popped free. He fisted it again.

Jensen watched with hooded eyes but didn’t move.

“I said I was sorry,” he said and put on the soulful eyes. “You still want me, Jen?”

Jared caught the signs. Maybe he wouldn’t have a few days ago, not so well, but he saw Jensen’s nostrils flair slightly, the muscle in his jaw jump, his pupils dilate, and he knew he’d won this round. Jensen slid out of his jeans, and Jared could smell his arousal thick as sorghum and twice as sweet. 

Jensen climbed onto the old iron bed and kneed Jared’s legs apart. That was kind of presumptuous, but Jared wanted to get off, not get in an argument. Okay, he’d screwed up. He’d pushed too hard. He could let Jensen be the alpha dog today. He could lay here and take it.

“Come on, Jen,” he said as his fingers trailed over Jensen’s ribs and dug in, pulled, demanded. Jared’s body arched up and his legs bracketed Jensen’s hips. “Come on.”

Jensen watched him for a moment and snatched the lube off the nightstand. “You in a hurry?” he asked as he slicked his cock. 

“Yeah,” he said, and his was voice stuck thick and scratchy like steel wool in his throat. A moment of doubt stilled him as he gazed up at Jensen’s smooth, pale skin. “Wait,” he said and rolled onto his knees. 

“You gonna be my bitch?” Jensen asked with amusement in his voice.

Oh you are so going to pay for that remark someday, Jared thought. “Anything you want.”

Jensen grabbed Jared’s hip with one hand and let the fingers of the other slide along the cleft of his ass. Jared pushed back against the touch.

“Don’t tease, Jen. I want your cock.”

Jensen’s teeth scraped along the back of his neck and across his shoulder blade. “Whatever you say, darlin’.” Both of Jensen’s hands were on his hips, and there was pressure against his furled hole. The pain was a sharp shock, and Jensen paused only a moment before continuing to push into him. Just as Jared was about to say stop the burn stopped, and, yes, holy fuck, yes, this was what he needed. .

“Aagh, Jen, fuck.” He pushed back against Jensen until he felt the other man flush against his buttocks. Jensen pulled out until only the edge of the crown caught on the rim and then plunged back in. Jared pushed back to meet him. His hands fisted in the threadbare sheets, and he was shaking all over from pleasure and need. 

The incantation of “Jen, Jen, Jen,” became an incoherent string of moans, and then Jensen changed the angle of his thrusts. It was like downshifting. They’d gone from fifth gear to third. Jensen was hitting his prostate only about every third time now. 

“No, no, please, please, Jen.” Fuck, he’d been so close. He started to reach for his cock, and Jensen grabbed his wrist, held it down. “Please, please.” He tried canting his hips, but Jensen moved with him. 

“Fuck, that sounds nice,” Jensen growled. 

“Make me come, Jen, please.”

“Keep going.”

“Fuck me, come on. Make me your bitch.”

Jensen switched angles again, and there, there, mother fucking there. It felt like depth charge went off inside him and someone was squeezing his balls. Jared’s muscles seized around Jensen’s cock, making his thrusts falter, and Jared screamed out his pleasure, shooting onto the sheets. He heard Jensen grunt as his own orgasm hit. Jared arched back against him and bit into the pillow before collapsing in a pool of his own cum.

Jensen went down with him and pulled them both onto their sides. He kissed Jared’s shoulder. “Good boy,” he said as he wrapped himself around the younger man.

Jared huffed out a laugh. “You are so going to pay for that.”

Jensen nuzzled the back of his neck. “Wasn’t it good for you?”

And it was. Jared knew it was. It was good like this, but he couldn’t help imagining Jensen all spread out for him, moaning and squirming. He’d have that. He just needed to be patient.

^^o^^

“Is the nurse all right?”

“Hello, Jensen. You may think we’re beyond niceties, but manners still count for something I hope,” Sherri said.

Jensen rubbed his neck. “I’m sorry, I …is she?” He was standing just to the corner of a dilapidated barn behind the roadhouse. It was the only place he could get a cell signal.

“She’s fine. You know the two of you really left a mess here for me. The police are looking for Jared. How are we supposed to explain things when he returns.”

Jensen paced along side of the barn. “I don’t know. I really don’t, but I had to get him out of there. You saw what happened. I was almost too late.”

“It wasn’t you? You didn’t?” Her voice was hopeful, but he wasn’t about to lie.

“No, of course not, I’m not a …” He bit off the words.

“No, but you once were, and now my son is.”

“That was unexpected and unfortunate.” He heard her scoff. “He hasn’t hurt anyone else, and we’re working on his self-control. Believe me I’m doing everything I can to keep him from hurting anyone.” Including me, he thought.

“Okay, good,” she said with a sigh. “Did we make a mistake?”

Jensen leaned back against the worn, faded wood of the barn. “I don’t know. It doesn’t matter anyway. What’s done is done.”

“Yes.” Her voice was little more than a whisper. “He’s … Is he still my son?”

Jensen pinched his eyes shut. “Yes and no. When I … you know the stories about me, but you don’t know that the 15 years I lived with my family after this happened to me, I loved them. I took care of them. I did horrible things to others, but I did my best to continue being a husband and father. So, yes, I’d say that your son, the person I met, is still there.”

“But …”

“But there’s something else too – there’s the something that attacked that nurse.”

“It’s evil.”

“No, no more than a mountain lion is evil or a shark. It’s an animal need that demands to be fed.” He knew this wasn’t quite accurate, but he was trying to keep it simple for her. He scuffed the toe of his boot in the dirt.

“I want my son back.”

Jensen sighed. “I can’t promise that, but I want, yeah, I want Jared back too.”

^^o^^

Jared wasn’t sure how he felt about this plan, but it had been two weeks and if he had to drink another juice bag, he’d cut his own throat just for the taste of living blood. He hung back in the shadows as Jensen approached the bar and leaned over to talk to Evan whose eyes flicked up to where Jared was leaning against the wall. He looked around at the quiet, almost empty bar. 

Afternoon light seeped in from the front windows illuminating a room much smaller and scruffier than it looked when it was full of people. The thought of that press of hot, human flesh was arousing and Jared shifted uncomfortably. His cock was half hard, but that’s not what they’d come for.

Evan said something to the other bartender and stepped out from behind the bar. Jensen glanced over at Jared and with a nod of his head indicated he should come along. They passed through the door in the corner as they had that night months ago and climbed the stairs.

Jared could smell Evan, hear his heart pounding, and it was all he could do to not grab him and drag him to the floor when they reached the room at the top. Jensen turned and put a hand in the middle of Jared’s chest. 

“Ground rules,” Jensen said. His eyes were narrowed, and Jared wanted to drag him to the ground too, fuck him senseless. “You do as I say.”

Jared clenched his teeth. “Yes,” he hissed out. 

“You,’ Jensen said to Evan, “keep your clothes on.” With that Jensen pulled Evan in front of him and leaned back against the wall with Evan’s back against his chest.

This was an offering Jensen was making to Jared. He got that. It was a gift. What was it his mama used to say, Don’t break your toys. I won’t get you new ones. Jared moved against Evan, chest to chest, but he didn’t look at him. He was focused on the glittering green eyes over his shoulder. 

“That’s right, darlin’. Take it slow. Make it good for him.”

Jared leaned it and caught Jensen’s soft, full lips in a kiss. This was painful, fucking excruciating, but he needed to show Jensen he could handle this. The pounding of Evan’s heart was deafening, and he could feel blood surging through the kid’s veins right through his clothes. Jared broke the kiss and lowered his mouth to Evan’s neck. He briefly felt the pulse beneath the skin before breaking it, before the gush of hot, thick blood hit his tongue.   
“Good, you’re doing so good, love,” Jensen said. “Take it slow. Savor it.”

But it was the hardest thing Jared had ever done to not sink his teeth deeper and suck harder at the wound, draw out every drop as the power and exhilaration rushed through his body. Jared heard himself moan, and Jensen’s fingers tangled in his hair, rubbed his scalp. Evan started to roll his groin against Jared’s leg, but Jensen’s other hand pushed Jared’s hips away, and with a firm ‘no’ put an end to that.

Jensen edged out from behind Evan then, and Evan thumped back against the wall pulling Jared with him. Jared wanted just a little more, oh please, god, just … he started to suck a little harder at the wound, but felt Jensen’s hands on the fly of his jeans, the zipper opening, his jeans sliding down to his ankles. The head of Jensen’s cock was pushing between his ass cheeks, against his hole with steady unrelenting pressure it stretched, opened, and Jared pulled away from Evan’s throat enough to gasp. 

Jensen continued to push until he was fully seated in Jared’s body, and Jared tipped his hips back for more. His lips suctioned back to Evan’s throat as Jensen began to pound into him. And Jared was sorry, sorry for every thought about wanting to hold Jensen down and fuck him until he screamed because, holy fuck, if this wasn’t what Jensen was meant to do, Jared didn’t know what was.

Every inch of him felt over-sensitized. He was hyperaware of every sensation – from Jensen’s teeth scraping along his neck to Evan’s fingers digging into his arms to the drag of Jensen’s cock in his channel. Electricity crackled along his nerves, across his skin. He was vaguely aware that Evan’s hips were humping against thin air as he gave one last hard pull at the wound on the kid’s neck, and Evan cried out in orgasm. His body arched, seizing in pleasure, and Jared felt powerful, in control.

His head fell forward against Evan’s shoulder as Jensen changed the angle of his thrusts making it all too clear who was in control because the burst of awesome almost made Jared’s knees buckle. Jensen’s hands slid from Jared’s hips up around his stomach and chest pressing them almost completely together, and thrusts became shallow rutting that rubbed over his prostate almost without pause.

“Jen, Jen, please,” he moaned before losing any ability to think let alone talk. Lightning shot up his spine. His body arched driving Jensen as far into him as possible.

Jensen gripped him so tightly, he couldn’t breath, and his teeth sank through Jared’s skin. Heat, like whiskey in the belly, seeped through is body. Jensen withdrew from the bite and licked over it.

“So good, darlin’,” his whispered and pulled out slowly. 

Jared was suddenly aware of the cold, wet between his cheeks, and that he was still leaning heavily on Evan who was only upright because Jared had him pinned to the wall. Jensen grabbed a handful of paper towels and wiped at the lube and cum seeping from Jared’s ass. Keeping his hands on Evan’s shoulders, Jared stood upright. Evan looked dazed.

“Here, let me get him,” Jensen said. He led Evan over to the ratty old couch while Jared cleaned up and straightened his clothes. When he was done, he found Jensen looking at him with that look – the look he’d had that first night – hungry and possessive.

“You were perfect,” Jensen said as he wrapped his arms around Jared and then kissed him. “How do you feel?”

“Awesome.” Jared grinned and squeezed Jensen tight. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”.

“We’re good together.”

“Yeah, we are.”

For the first time since the hospital, Jared didn’t feel out of control. This could work. He just had to rely on Jensen, listen to him, take his cues from him. He crushed his mouth down over Jensen’s and shoved the smaller man against the wall. Jensen curled his fingers in Jared’s hair and angled their mouths together. Jared lost himself in the soft, wet, warm of Jensen.

As the kiss broke, Jensen’s head dropped back against the wall, and his smile was self-satisfied and dirty. Jensen’s hands slid down to cup Jared’s ass and pull their hips together. 

“You trying to get toppy with me again?”

“You might like it,” Jared smirked.

“Don’t push your luck, darlin’.”

Jared shrugged as he pulled away. “Just sayin’ – you don’t know what your missin’, Jen.”

Jensen just shook his head. “Let’s get out of here.”

Jared glanced at Evan asleep on the couch. “You think he’ll be okay?”

“Oh yeah, he just needs to rest. Let’s go home.” Jensen opened the door to the stairs.  
“Where’s that?”

Jensen tipped his head. “Good question.”

^^o^^


	11. Chapter 11

Jensen downed the shot of tequila and smacked the shot glass down on the scarred wood table. His jawed clenched momentarily at the burn. Taking a swig of beer from the long neck, he leaned back in his chair, knees splayed. 

Jared was watching an Astros game on the TV over the bar, but Jensen was enjoying the view – the long, lean legs balancing the chair on two legs, Levi’s pulled tight over the crotch, and hell, he could see the outline of Jared’s dick against the denim. A beer hung loosely in one elegant hand while the fingers of the other drummed on his knee. A Cowboys jersey was stretched across his broad chest and shoulders, and his strong jaw jutted out when the ball popped out of the center fielder’s glove and the third baseman failed to tag the runner.

“Fuck,” Jared moaned. “Beat by the Cubs. That’s just shameful.”

Jensen just smirked. “Right.”

Jared looked over with a grin. “You ogling me?”

“Maybe.” Jensen poured two more shots of tequila and motioned the barmaid for another round of beer. 

The front legs of Jared’s chair clunked down on the worn wood floor, and they clicked their shot glasses together.

“Salud,” they said in unison before tipping the glass back.

The barmaid, Brittney aka just-call-me-Britt, set two more Modelos in front of them. “Get you boys anything else?” Her eyes went from one to the other but lingered on Jensen, and in another life, yeah, he’d have obliged. She was slim with milky skin and long auburn hair. The memory of running his fingers through hair so much like that flashed through his mind, and he pushed it away.

Jared chuckled. “Umm, yeah, some onion rings.”

“And hot wings,” Jensen added. 

Jared laughed outright. “Dude, how about some deep fried jalapenos while you’re at it?”  
Jensen grinned. So he’d developed a taste for spicy food – Singapore mei fun, Thai green curry, the enchiladas from that little place down on Second Street. “Shut up,” he said.

Jared smiled and took a drink of beer. Jensen watched as his gaze moved across the room and the smile faded away. Jared leaned his elbows on the table and began to pick the label from his beer bottle. Jensen waited. He could see the wheels turning in Jared’s head. They’d been drinking awhile, but neither was drunk enough to avoid the elephant in the room

Jensen knew when Jared made up his mind to talk about it. He could see it from the set of Jared’s jaw and tension between his eyebrows. He could have spoken the question before it was uttered, but he didn’t have an answer for it.

“Jen, what are we going to do?”

Jensen sighed and took a drink of beer just to delay having to speak. He shook his head. “I don’t know.” Jared’s eyes searched his face, and he felt guilty. He was supposed to be the one in charge, the one with answers he didn’t have.

“Oh, well …”

Britt chose that moment to bring their order, and the smell of grease and hot onion and spicy chicken hit them. Somehow that changed the mood as Jared stuffed an onion ring into his mouth and watched Britt’s ass as she walked away.

“What do you want to do?” Jensen asked. He wasn’t looking at Jared now, he was concentrating on trying to pull every last shred of meat off a chicken wing.

“What do you mean?” Jared asked around a mouthful of crunchy, oniony goodness. 

Jensen smiled. It was funny how food could completely change Jared’s mood. “I mean – your family – your mom knows, how much do you want the rest of them to know, if anything?”

Jared bit off a chunk of chicken and chewed thoughtfully. “I don’t know. I wonder if she’s told Dad. I mean … wow, I don’t know. That’s huge, isn’t it?”

Jensen nodded. “Yeah, it is.” Jensen washed some of the heat out of his mouth with beer. “It’s an awful lot for her to deal with by herself.”

“So maybe, I should go see her. Talk to her. You think?”

“Maybe, but we have to think about the police too. If you want to go back to your old life at all, we’re going to have to come up with an explanation about your disappearance, the injury to the nurse, the theft of blood from the hospital.” Jensen bit off a chunk of onion ring.

“If only the accident hadn’t forced your hand.”

Jensen just raised his eyebrows.

“I know, I know, spilt milk.”

“Mm-hmm, we can’t waste our time with what might have been.” Jensen watched the kid’s face as Jared nodded in agreement. 

“I’ve been thinking about it, but I haven’t come up with a brilliant, fool proof plan. You?” Jared licked the hot sauce from his lips, and Jensen couldn’t help but think that he’d like to do that himself.

He just shook head. “No, I can’t say I have, but I think it would require some fictional bad guys and keeping a story like that straight is going to be tricky.”

“Yeah, the fact that you disappeared too is problematic.”

“Yeah,” Jensen agreed.

Jared’s eyes tracked movement across the barroom like a lion on the savannah. He licked his lips, but Jensen didn’t think it had anything to do with the hot wings this time. 

“Jared.”

Hazel eyes focused on Jensen. “She’s really … what’s the word? Succulent.”

“Not gonna happen,” Jensen said.

“Don’t think so?”

“Two guys our size?” Jensen shook his head and pushed the chicken bones away before draining his beer. “No, too intimidating.”

“Maybe she’s a thrill seeker,” Jared said. “She likes you.”

“She’s just friendly.” Jensen poured more shots.

“No, she’s friendly to both of us; she likes you.”

“So what?” Jensen tipped his head and looked intently at Jared. “So, can my boyfriend come along?”

Jared grinned. “Worth a try.”

“No.” It wasn’t worth a try. He didn’t want her. Didn’t want to go there. He could see Alta lying on the floor with blood on her dress. He downed the tequila to clear the memory of her blood from his mouth. “Let it go.”

Jared leaned back in his chair. “Fine.”

“You gonna drink that?” Jensen pointed at Jared’s shot.

“No, I want another beer, you?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“I don’t see the barmaid. Be right back.”

Jensen watched Jared go to the bar and poured himself another shot. Jesus fucking Christ, what was he supposed to do? There was no way Jared would agree to just leaving town and never seeing his family again, but the idea of trying to cover what had happened at the hospital, what Jared had become was insane. There was really no logical explanation for Jared’s recovery. None. No doubt the police would want to question them both, doctors would want to examine Jared, and his family … what the hell.

He threw the shot back, and looked around. Jared wasn’t at the bar. Jensen sat up and gripped the edge of the table. His eyes swept the room, and he didn’t see Britt either.

“Fuck.” He headed for the back hallway where the bathrooms were located. The light was a little brighter here and the noise from the bar muffled, but he heard no one in the restrooms. Still, he pushed the doors open to make sure they were empty.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

He stepped back into the hall and heard soft cry from around the corner of the L-shaped hallway. He made the turn and saw a door to the left. It was locked but Jensen forced it with little effort. There was no way Jared didn’t hear it, but he didn’t acknowledge Jensen’s presence at all. 

Britt was sitting on a big, old metal desk with her legs wrapped around Jared’s hips, and Jared had his face buried in the curve of her neck. Luckily for him, his pants were up even though Britt’s crotch moved rhythmically against his. Fuck no. No, on all accounts, Jensen thought. He grabbed Jared by the scruff of the neck and yanked on his hair.

“Get off her,” he demanded.

Jared did. His arm went around Jensen’s waist and pulled him toward them. Jared crushed his mouth to Jensen’s, and the smell made Jensen instinctively open up to the bloody maw of his lover. He sucked Jared’s tongue clean and his own swept across Jared’s cheeks and the roof of his mouth until all he could taste was Jared. He wanted more. Jared was still holding Britt with his other arm, and she was watching them with glazed eyes.

“You two are … thought so,” she mumbled.

All Jensen could see was the bloody wound on her neck. The smell was making him hard.

“Have some,” Jared urged. He pulled Britt’s legs from around his waist and moved from between them. He pushed Jensen into the space and Jensen literally fell on her, shoving her onto her back before sucking at the wound Jared had made. God, she was sweet as Elta.

Her hips were moving against him, and he felt Jared reach between them and undo his jeans before sliding them down. He wanted to say no, wanted to stay in control, but the tequila and beer and anger and confusion and this redheaded woman made him pliable in a way he couldn’t explain. Jared wasn’t hurting her, and Jensen was so tired of being the responsible one.

The alcohol and blood were a rich mixture in his veins, and when Jared pulled his buttocks apart and licked across his hole, he almost came because Britt’s silky panties were now rubbing against his bare cock. But when Jared heard Jensen’s muffled moan, he reached around him to shove Britt away from the edge of the desk so she couldn’t make contact. She whimpered, and Jensen felt her slide her hand between them to finger herself.

He didn’t care really because Jared’s tongue was stretching him open, sliding and curling against the walls of his anus. Then a finger joined the tongue, twisting and thrusting into him as the tongue teased at the rim, and a second finger joined the first. They curled and rubbed at his prostate, and he gasped as he licked at the bloody skin before letting his head fall against the girl’s shoulder.

Jared’s fingers pulled out, and Jensen was left feeling empty and needy. He tipped his ass up and moaned for more. He didn’t care. His body was in charge, and it wanted to get off. When the crown of Jared’s cock pushed between his ass cheeks, it felt feverishly hot, thick, demanding. Jensen couldn’t help but think, this is gonna hurt, but right now, he wanted the hurt. 

And it did. It split him open, and he made an involuntary sound like an injured animal. If he weren’t so far gone, he’d have been embarrassed. He pushed back against Jared, inviting more, and Jared gave it to him; shoved in without any more warning. One hand on Jensen’s hip and the other on his shoulder, Jared began to ride him hard and fast. Jensen’s weight was being pressed onto the girl over and over, Britt’s breath was being forced out in puffs, and he could feel her trembling all over as her hand worked herself.

Jensen’s hands gripped the far edge of the desk to keep his cock from being crushed against the front. Still, it occasionally rapped against the metal, distracting him briefly from the overwhelming fullness in his rectum, the mind-bending stimulation of his prostate. 

“Your bitch, am I, Jen? Huh?” Jared gasped. “Who’s the bitch now?”

What? Oh. Jensen thought. Yeah, we’ll talk about that later. Jared’s hips slammed into him, and fuck, that kind of hurt.

“I asked you a question?”

Jensen just moaned. He was so close, so close.

“Who’s the bitch now, Jen?” The thrusts stilled to almost a stop, but no, Jensen was not going to play that game. Jared needed to come just as much as he did, damn it. “No? Really? I bet I can get off without getting you off.” Jared twisted his hips enough to hit Jensen’s prostate once, and Jensen couldn’t help the moan that escaped his throat. “Say it, Jen. Two words. Who is?”

“No,” Jensen choked out. That was his game. How dare Jared use it against him. Another twist and thrust, and Jensen whimpered. He heard himself, and fuck, what the fuck, that was an admission in itself.

“I am.”

“What?”

“Please.”

“What?”

“You’re bitch.”

Jared chuckled, and the powerful thrusts resumed. Britt was squirming now, her hips grinding up against her fingers, and Jensen was slamming back to meet Jared. The feeling had changed too. Instead, of muscles tightly gripping Jared’s cock, they were completely relaxed, taking it in, welcoming it, begging for it. He was shaking and moaning and the pleasure was rising deep in his gut, tension building in his balls, and when his orgasm hit, he bit into Britt’s neck again to keep from screaming. Blood flooded his mouth, and he blacked out but was totally aware of her cries as her body went rigid beneath him. Jared’s movements became erratic as cum slicked his way, and Jensen’s pleasure verged on pain.

Jared’s hand loosened on his shoulder, stroked his skin as the younger man leaned over and kissed along Jensen’s spine and across his shoulders. Jensen could feel Jared’s cock becoming soft inside him. When he pulled out a trickle of cum ran down Jensen’s balls. Jared’s hands caressed Jensen’s buttocks as though reluctant to lose contact.

Jensen realized his weight was on Britt and he pushed himself up. “Sorry,” he said. 

She looked dazed but gave him a small, crooked smile. “Gay vampire sex, huh?” she said. “Now, I’ve done it all.”

Jensen flushed and pulled his shorts and jeans up. He turned to Jared who stuck his chin out like a dare. Jensen clenched his jaw. They acknowledged a silent we’ll talk about this later before Jensen looked back at Britt still spread across the desk. He pulled her skirt down to cover her wet panties. 

“You okay?” he asked.

“Yeah, sure.” She pushed herself up on her elbows. 

Jensen pulled out his wallet. “How much?” he asked.

“Excuse me?” she said sitting up.

“Our tab,” he said.

“Oh, with the tequila? Eighty ought to do it.”

He pulled out three twenties and handed them to her. “Keep the change. You.” He pointed at Jared. “Out.”

^^o^^

Jared knew he’d fucked up. Part of him thought that it shouldn’t mean as much as it did. He glanced across the truck at Jensen, at the tight set of his jaw and narrowed eyes. The roar of the truck was like a pack of Harleys following them, and he didn’t have to look at the speedometer to know they were exceeding the speed limit.

He looked away, out the side window at the scrubby desert flying past, and he didn’t have to ask where they were going – back to the roadhouse. He wondered if they’d both leave alive – or whatever they were – would they leave together?

He’d broken the first rule not to go off on his own, but he hadn’t hurt the girl. That wasn’t the point. He knew that too, and he didn’t understand the way he bristled at Jensen telling him how to behave when he knew it was the smart thing to do. He knew he was acting like a rebellious teenager in that regard, but he hadn’t ever really been a rebellious teen. So, maybe he was just getting it out of system late.

“You think every vampire wants to be the alpha dog?” he asked without thinking.  
The muscle in Jensen’s jaw jumped, and for a moment, Jared feared that they were going to go off-roading like they had on the first trip out here. But Jensen didn’t even acknowledge the question, and that, Jared thought, couldn’t be good. 

The rest of the trip was accompanied by only the roar of the engine and a palpable tension. The sun was hanging low over the desert when Jensen pulled into the dirt lot beside the roadhouse. Without a word, he got out of the truck and slammed the door shut. Jared paused for a moment before following him. Jensen was stalking toward the door when Jared caught up.

“Jen.”

“Don’t,” Jensen yelled as he spun around. “Don’t try that kicked puppy tone with me. You want to be alpha dog, Jared, you gotta own the consequences. What you did, going off on your own and drinking that girl, you knew was against the rules.”

Jared opened his mouth, but Jensen continued. “The rules you agreed to, God damn it. And then that alpha dog bullshit.”

Suddenly, Jared found his voice. “You did it to me. You think I liked it?”

Jensen drew a deep breath. “Liked it? Do you think I liked doing it to you? I did it because you attacked me, you little shit. I did it because I needed you to follow my lead, not because I was playing a sex game with you.”

“Bullshit, you like being on top. You want to be in control.”

“No, Jared, I don’t. Not like this. I don’t like pushing you around. I don’t like having to control you, but you aren’t safe. You proved that today.”

“I … I didn’t hurt her. I wasn’t going to. I swear. I know I shouldn’t have broken the rules, but you …” He threw his hands up and let them drop to his sides.

“What? I wouldn’t play along?” Jensen sighed. “Jared, darlin’, part of this training is learning that you can’t always have what you want.” Jensen took a step toward him. “We were both drunk. She could have changed her mind and any moment and screamed. That was reckless. You know that, right?”

All the fight went out of Jared because he did know, but the danger had been part of the thrill, hadn’t it? The predator part of him liked it, liked the danger as much as the hunt. It made catching the prey that much more satisfying. 

“Come inside,” Jensen said. Jared followed the sturdy form of his lover up the porch steps and into the weathered building. He wondered sometimes how he could love that body so much – the strong shoulders, muscular arms, almost perfect curve of ass, and ridiculously sexy bend of legs. He couldn’t help thinking of Sandy and her tiny, soft body. How could he have not realized that wasn’t what he wanted? Once again, he couldn’t help but wonder if Jensen’s bite had changed him in some essential way long before he’d drunk blood himself.

Jensen walked behind the bar and got a bottle of bourbon before leading Jared upstairs. He turned on a small light on the bureau and poured liquor into a couple jelly jars.

“Sit.” He motioned toward the sofa. 

Jared didn’t argue. Jensen pulled a chair directly in front of him and sat so that there knees were slotted between each other. Jensen leaned his elbows on his knees with the glass of bourbon in his hands. He gazed into the amber liquid.

“After my son ran me off, I traveled around the area. Phoenix, New Orleans, Houston, down to Galveston, but I always came back. I knew it was dangerous because Josh knew what I was. He’d warned me not to come around, but I had to know how they were. That’s what I told myself. But that wasn’t all it was. I know that now. If it had been, I wouldn’t have taken a lover here. But I did. I liked to think that I was the predator, that I was faster, stealthier, more cunning, but they were patient and cruel and dishonorable.”

Jared didn’t want to hear the rest of the story, but he couldn’t interrupt. Whatever Jensen had to say, Jared knew it was difficult for him. He wouldn’t be saying it if he didn’t need to, if he didn’t think Jared needed to hear it. Jensen took a sip of bourbon and continued.

“It had taken me 15 years to tame the monster I’d become. I had a young man I visited, a school teacher, and I was good to him. I … I loved him, in a way. I was fond of him. He was educated and lovely. He didn’t belong there in that backward town.” He paused for another sip. “They got to him. Threatened him. Promised to send him back east. He betrayed me, and they betrayed him. They beat him. I don’t know …” His voice trailed off. He still hadn’t looked at Jared who sat with his glass forgotten in his hand. He wanted to touch Jensen, hold him, but he owed it to Jensen to listen. Still, he couldn’t stop the comment that burst out of him.

“But he betrayed you.”

Jensen looked up then. “But I was responsible, Jared. Don’t you understand what I’m trying to tell you? I was reckless. I drew them to him and through him, to me. I’m not angry at him. He didn’t deserve what they did to him. He was the lamb. I was the lion. I had quit attacking the flock, but that wasn’t enough for them. They wanted to make me pay.”

“Your son was one of them?” Jared leaned forward and placed a hand on Jensen’s arm.

“He was the leader. He cut my throat. He buried me in a shallow grave, and he knew I wasn’t dead.”

Jared had heard the term heartache, but he’d never felt it before. The hand on Jensen’s arm moved up and cupped the back of Jensen’s neck. He pressed their forehead’s together. “Oh God, Jen,” he breathed.

“I’m not telling you this for sympathy,” Jensen said. He tipped his head back and looked Jared in the eye. “You made us both vulnerable today.”

Jared nodded. “Okay, but we’re faster and stronger, we could out fight any human, couldn’t we? And the way we heal …”

“Is that a risk you’re willing to take with your life or mine? The way you’re thinking is exactly how I thought, Jared. I thought I was superior, that I wasn’t really vulnerable. I was arrogant, and I was wrong.”

Suddenly it hit Jared, what they’d been avoiding until today, it was simple. He pulled his hand away from Jensen as though burned and got up. No, no, no, he paced and ran his hands through his hair. It was obvious is what it was. He faced Jensen who was still sitting facing the sofa, looking into his drink. 

“I should cut off ties with my family, shouldn’t I?”

Jensen raised his head but didn’t look at Jared. “I can’t make that decision for you.”

“You’ve known all along.”

Jensen set his drink down and rose to his feet. “Jared, you had to come to this understanding on your own.”

Jared felt bereft. He hadn’t thought of this, hadn’t imagined he’d have to give them up completely. Jensen put his arms around him.

“I’m sorry. If we hadn’t rushed into this, we’d have talked about it. I would never have made you choose me without knowing the consequences. I wouldn’t do that to you.”

No, this was too much. How could he have ended up here? His life was over. He’d lost everything that had been important to him – Sandy and his family and his education – all of it was gone because of Jensen. He pushed Jensen away.

“You’ve taken everything from me.”

He saw Jensen draw back and his face closed off. He nodded and left the room. Jared heard Jensen’s boots on the stairs and a few moments later the sound of the truck starting, the squeal of tires as it hit pavement.

He looked around the room at someone else’s furniture. There was nothing here that was his but a few changes of clothes. He had nothing.

^^o^^


	12. Chapter 12

There are a lot of expressions about fate. It has twists and comes into play. You can’t cheat it, but you can seal it. And, of course, you can become its victim. But one thing that’s universally true is that you shouldn’t tempt it. That’s why Jensen should have just turned around and left when he spotted the blue eyed woman in the mirror over the bar. Instead he found himself placing a hand lightly on the small of her back to get her attention as he glared at the man on the barstool beside to her.

“Miriam, aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?” he asked.

She looked up startled. “Oh, yes, I …”

“That’s all right, sweetheart,” he grinned and put out his hand. “Jensen.”

“Yes, I’m sorry, darling,” she said as though a hand was tightening around her throat. He wasn’t sure if the reaction was anger or fear. “This is Troy. He was just keeping me company until you arrived.”

“Right, nice to meet you, Jensen. I’ll just …” The young man slid off the barstool and slipped into the crowd.

Jensen took the barstool and faced his maker. She didn’t look so different after 150 years give or take – same alabaster skin, pale blue eyes, and black hair. Her dress was short and low cut, the deep red almost the color of blood.

“You didn’t have to look like you were going to eat him,” she pouted and took a sip of wine. 

“That’s more your style,” he said. “Where’s James?”

There was a flicker of pain in her eyes. “James is dead.”

“Pity,” Jensen said and sipped his bourbon. “I was really hoping to kill him myself.”

“That’s a cruel thing to say,” she snapped.

He shrugged. “I don’t take kindly to rape.”

She cast her eyes down into her wine. “He loved me.”

He didn’t reply, and she straightened her skirt, ran her fingers through her hair as he stared. She toyed with her bracelet, but still he didn’t speak.

“Do you intend to kill me too?” she finally asked.

“I didn’t come looking for you. I just happened to find you.”

She nodded as though that was an answer, and maybe it was, he thought. He didn’t really know why he was sitting here talking to this woman, this monster that had helped take his life away, his wife, his family. There was a direct line from her to him walking out on Jared less than an hour ago.

“So,” she twisted her wine glass back and forth on the bar as she spoke, “where have you been?”

“Me?” he chuckled. “In a shallow grave.” He leaned his arms on the bar and rolled the rocks glass between his palms. He eyed her reflection in the mirror. She was lovely. A lovely killer like him. He met his own eyes in the mirror – glittering green, long lashes, luscious lips – it wasn’t vanity all subjectivity aside. It didn’t hurt to be pretty when you were a predator.

“Oh,” she said as though contemplating that fate. “Oh, that’s … for how long?”

Jensen shook his head. Just old friends catching up on each other’s lives. “Too long. What about you? Where’ve you been?”

“I’ve been around. All over the country, to Europe. Have you been to Europe?”

“No.” He’d thought about it while he was traveling the American south. Should have done it and avoided the fate worse than death he’d endured for almost a century.

“You should. You’d like it. It’s lovely – the food, the countryside, the people.”

“Was James with you? Is that where he died?” Jensen motioned to the bartender for another round.

“Stop bringing him up. It’s mean.” She pouted. Really? he thought. Jared’s puppy dog face was far more affective.

“Sorry, just curious,” he said.

“We could go, you and I, to Europe. I have money.”

“Do you?” Wonder where that came from, he thought. Bet you worked long days in the sun for it.

“Mm, have you been on an airplane?”

“No,” he turned toward her. “I’d love to though.”

“You would,” she said and faced him then. “I’m sorry, you know, for the way things happened.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Are you?”

“Yes, it’s just … I’m sorry the way we left you. It must have been difficult.”

He bit the inside of his cheek as rage rolled through him. He wanted nothing more than to reach out and snap her neck. Difficult. Waking up with the humiliation of another man’s cum on his ass and balls and craving blood like a drunk with DTs. Alone, desperate, and so damn thirsty he’d killed his own horse to drink its blood and then thrown half of it back up in disgust. He clenched his fist on his thigh, but she didn’t seem to notice. He felt himself nodding and then smiling.

“We’ve all done things we regret,” he heard himself say. “Certainly things would have been different, had I been more prepared for what I’d become, but it’s water under the bridge right?”

^^o^^

Jared was sitting in the darkened barroom. The light from the back hall threw a bright square across the bar where he sat. He’d drunk his way through half a bottle of Jack Daniels when he heard the roar of Jensen’s truck outside. He didn’t move. He wasn’t sure what to say – It isn’t all your fault. I played a part. I dug you up. I didn’t listen. I’m out of control. He sighed, and then looked up with a start when he heard two sets of footsteps on the porch.

The overhead light came on, and Jared blinked against the brightness as he rose to his feet. Jensen grabbed the arm of the woman with him and shoved her toward Jared. She was small, dark haired, and wearing a come-fuck-me dress. The shove made her stumble on her stilletos.

“Hey,” she protested and glanced back at Jensen before looking at Jared again. 

“This is Miriam,” Jensen said. His voice was low and rough like he’d been screaming or eating glass. Jared was confused and it must have shown on his face because Jensen went on. “I told you about her, but maybe I didn’t mention her name. She’s the one who seduced me and drained me until I couldn’t fight off her brother when he raped me and turned me.”

Jared suddenly felt sick, the Jack Daniels trying to push its way up his throat. Whatever else this was, it wouldn’t end well he thought. Jensen’s eyes looked dead, and he casually leaned back against the wall, while tension crackled from the woman in the blood red dress. 

“What is this?” she demanded. “Who is he?”

“That,” Jensen took a predatory step toward her, and she backed up instinctively. “Is Jared, the one I turned.” He gave her a shark’s smile. “I love him, but he hates me as I hate you, and he has every right.”

The woman glanced at Jared but seemed to realize that Jensen was the real threat. “Why would you hate me?” she said. “I, look at you. You’re still beautiful. You can live forever, go wherever you want, take whatever you want.”

No, no, no, that’s the wrong thing to say, Jared thought. He’ll … Jensen had a hold of her in an instant. He had a vice-like grip on her upper arm and her wrist. She tried to twist away, but his fingers just dug harder into her flesh.

“Do you think that’s what I want – to take whatever I want as you did me? To destroy people, families, communities? Do you have any idea what you made?” Jared heard her wrist snap and she screamed. “This. You made this monster. Do you really think you’re above the misery you left in your wake? Hmm? Did you think fate wouldn’t catch up to you? Well, here I am.” Jensen’s arm slid around her waist, and his teeth sank into her neck. 

The smell of vampire blood filled the room, and Jared groaned, saliva flooded his mouth. He licked his lips. He should stop this, whatever this was, it was out of control, and what had Jensen said about losing control. Yeah, well, whatever it was, Jared couldn’t remember, couldn’t think because the smell and the sound of the woman’s heart now beating like a small, hunted thing in her chest had his senses in overdrive. He stepped forward and clutched her long black hair in his hand and pulled it toward him. 

Her neck arched back farther revealing the bright, bubbling spot where Jensen’s lips were sucking furiously at her flesh. Jared pulled again, and Jensen looked up without releasing the bite and growled at him. Fucking growled like a dog. Greedy, fucking bastard. Jared yanked harder and a strangled cry came from the throat of the woman as blue eyes back in her head.

Jared leaned in, closed his fingers over Jensen’s where they gripped her arm, and bit down on the other side of her neck. The heat of her blood surged through him, sizzling along his nerves, scorching his skin, burning through him like an electrical fire in an tinder-dry building. It was good and painful, and he felt the pull of Jensen’s connection through her as their heartbeats synced up and hers faded, slowed, stopped. The body fell to the floor between them, and they faced each other like soldiers after a battle. 

Jensen’s mouth was glazed with blood under the harsh overhead light. His eyes were hooded and dark. He licked his lips. 

Jared was vaguely aware that there were two ways to go. He could acknowledge the dead vampire at their feet or he could lean forward, grasp Jensen’s hips, and lick the gore off his full bottom lip. He could suck it between his own savoring the salt and copper wine there, lick into the comforting heat of his mouth. He moaned when Jensen sucked on his tongue hard enough to make his cock twitch.

And, yeah, they were already there. Jensen pushed him backward as he stepped over the body. He shoved Jared against the bar and bruised his lips with a fierce kiss. Jensen’s fingers dug into his ribs, his back, his ass as his hands pushed and pulled at him. Jared was just as frantic and needy. His cock was so hard it ached in pain as much as pleasure. 

Fabric tore as they dragged one another to floor, and splinters dug into Jared’s knees as Jensen forced him down. With only precum slicking the way, Jensen pushed into him. He gritted his teeth over the scream and pushed back, impaling himself in an urgent attempt to quell the brushfire that was about to immolate him. Because now with this, he was about to lose himself and that was bad, no, good, awesome. Oh fuck, so awesome, as Jensen moved inside him. Claimed him. Owned him. 

Jensen’s fingers bruised his hips and his teeth set on the curve of Jared’s shoulder, barely breaking the skin, but holding him in place, the threat of pain, of injury right there, right on the edge of rightwrongwantneed, and his back arched as he went up in flames. His wails echoed in his ears. It was quieted by Jensen’s hissing intake of breath as he spilled deep and hot into Jared, filling, oozing from him.

Jared became aware of the pain in his knees. Jensen’s arm was wrapped around Jared’s waist, and his forehead was resting on Jared’s spine. His ears were filled with the sound of their pounding hearts and harsh breaths. 

“Jen.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Just …” Jensen pressed another kiss to his back before letting his flaccid cock slide from Jared’s hole leaving Jared feeling strangely empty, alone. When they got to their feet, Jared pulled Jensen into his arms. He couldn’t let the connection be broken.

“I don’t blame you, Jen.”

“I didn’t look for her. I didn’t plan this.”

“I meant any of it. I don’t blame you for any of it.” He searched the moss green eyes for understanding. “I’m so out of control. I realize now what this blood does to me. How can I blame you? I’m the one that one that set all this in motion with my insatiable curiosity. After that, it’s all just …” He sighed. 

Jensen tipped his forehead down against Jared chest where the curve of his skull fitted to the curve of Jared’s throat.

“When I saw her in the bar, I should have walked away,” Jensen said. “I kept telling myself that I should, but I didn’t. I told myself that I just wanted answers, that you needed answers, that if you could meet her, you’d understand.”

Jared tipped his head down and kissed Jensen’s hair. It was so soft against his lips, and Jensen sounded so broken. He held him tighter.

“When she said that, like I should be grateful … Maybe she’s a victim like us, but after everything she took from me, from you … from us.”

“But she can’t take us.” Jared tipped Jensen’s face up. “We still have us. We always will. I don’t hate you, Jen.” He kissed that beautiful, bloody mouth. “I love you. You’ve tried so hard to get me through this. I know you have, and I’ve been … difficult.” He offered Jensen a sheepish smile. Jensen bit his lip and smiled in return.

“Yeah, you have.” He cupped the back of Jared’s head and pulled him in for another kiss. “But you’re worth it.” The next kiss was longer, deeper as though neither wanted it to end, but Jensen finally broke it with a sigh. 

He looked over at where blue eyes stared blindly at the ceiling. Jared’s guts twisted. “We have a mess to clean up,” Jensen said.

“Mm, you shouldn’t play so rough with your toys,” Jared said without thinking. He felt kind of lightheaded and weak in the knees.

Jensen’s mouth dropped open.

“Sorry, I …” Jared sat down so heavily the chair scraped back a few inches. Jensen stepped between Jared and the body and pulled him close so Jared’s cheek was against his chest. 

“If it makes you feel better, she wasn’t human – not for a long time.”

“Is that going to happen to us, Jen?”

“No, darlin’, we’re going to keep each other human.”

“How though?” he asked recalling Jensen’s growl, the way they’d fought over her like dogs with a bone.

Jensen dropped into a squat between Jared’s knees. “She told me something. We don’t have to have human blood. All we need is each other. She and James discovered that when they got snowed in one winter – before me. They made the choice to keep feeding on humans, but we don’t have to.” He stroked Jared’s cheek. 

“You think?” Jared asked.

“Yes. What happened here … was different. I’m sorry you were a part of it.”

Jared leaned forward and kissed Jensen’s forehead, tipped his head against Jensen’s. He didn’t realize he was crying until Jensen took his face in his hands and wiped them away with his thumbs.

“Hey, hey,” Jensen whispered. “It’s going to be okay. Right?”

Jared nodded. “Yeah. I …” Love you, he wanted to say, it is. It’s going to be fine. But his throat closed up.

“I know, darlin’,” Jensen hugged him close and kissed his cheek. “I’ve turned your life upside down.”

Jared couldn’t deny that. He had, but Jared didn’t resent him for it. He couldn’t imagine a world without Jensen in it or living in the muffled, veiled world of human senses. He didn’t want his old life back despite everything he’d lost. He had to let all that go because there was no going back.

“I love you, Jen.” 

Tears pooled in Jensen’s eyes, swelled, and one slid over the edge and tracked through the blood on his cheek.

“You’re beautiful,” Jared said, and he knew that whatever they were, they weren’t human. Jensen lowered his eyes and shook his head.

“No, I’m …”

“Pretty? Gorgeous? Sexy? Hot?” Jared grinned, Jensen started to smile somewhere around sexy. 

“Okay, enough. We have to clean up and get out of here.”

Jared took a deep breath and released it. “Yeah, shallow grave?”

Jensen turned and contemplated the body before nodding. “We’ll need to behead her. She’ll lucky really. At least she’ll dead.”

^^o^^

“You are coming with me, right?” Jared asked as they pulled up at the curb. Jensen turned off the truck and the silence seemed unnatural after the roar of the engine. He wondered how many people they’d awakened. Neighbors were probably peering out of their windows.

“Yeah, if that’s what you want.” Jensen’s eyebrows pulled together.

“I just, yeah, I do.” 

“Okay.”

“Kitchen light’s on,” Jared said. “She’s up. Figured she would be.” His mother had had insomnia for years. She rarely slept passed 3 a.m.

He got out of the truck and went up the sidewalk to the door hidden in the shadows of the breezeway. Jensen followed him as he let himself in with a key hidden along the top of the door facing as it had been since he was a kid. 

“Mama,” he called out softly as they passed through the laundry room. She was standing beside the kitchen table clutching the back of a chair. Her hair was pulled back loosely, and she was wearing a pale green bathrobe. In the soft light from under the cabinets, she looked as she had when he was small, when he’d wake from a bad dream and she’d make him warm milk with nutmeg sprinkled on top. 

He didn’t think. He just rounded the table and hugged her to his chest, kissed the top of her head, and she clung to him. He knew she was crying. He could feel the tears soaking through his shirt, but she didn’t make a sound. After an extra-tight hug, she stepped back but kept her hands on his arms. 

“How are you?” she asked looking up at him.

“I’m fine. Good. Not a scar on me.” Maybe that wasn’t quite the thing to say because she blinked hard and looked away.

“Would you like a cup of tea? I was making myself some. I couldn’t sleep.” She moved to the stove and got two more mugs out of the cabinet beside it. 

Jared looked at Jensen who leaned against the wall. Jensen nodded, and Jared took a deep breath. “Mama, we need to talk.”

“I know.” She poured water over the teabags and set the cups on the table. “Sit down, honey. You too.” She glanced at Jensen, but he didn’t move. 

“Mama,” he began but then couldn’t go on with his little speech. He’d thought all the way back to town about what he’d say, how he’d say it, but now faced with his mother, he couldn’t. Not yet. “Have you told Dad, anyone, about me?”

“No, of course not. They’d think I was crazy.” She dipped her teabag in and out of the hot water.

“Right. So, what do the cops think?” 

“They don’t know what to think. None of it makes sense. I guess that’s good. They think that Jensen might be involved in something illegal.” Her eyes flicked up to the figure by the door but quickly back to her cup. “Not because there’s any kind of evidence, just because they can’t find that he exists.”

“What did you tell them about me?” Jensen asked.

“Nothing.” She toyed with the string on the teabag. “I mean, just that I’d talked to you on the phone once and met you at the hospital. That Jared hadn’t told me much about you. I just said you were friends. I wasn’t even sure how you’d met.”

Jared took her hand. “That’s good. The less information you give them the better. If you don’t lie, then you can’t be caught in a lie.”

“Well, I can hardly tell the truth. Can I?” she said, and he squeezed her hand. He could hear that she was on the verge of tears. “They think you’re probably dead.” Tears suddenly rolled down her cheeks. “They think that maybe you were taken because you knew about some crime or something.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Jared saw Jensen pull a tissue from a box on the desk. He came to the table and offered it to Sherri. She didn’t move to take it at first. She just looked up at the man standing beside her as though he was a puzzle. Then she accepted it with a thank you. Jared gave Jensen a small smile, but got a raised eyebrow in return. He nodded.

“Mama, this situation with the police and the hospital – even if we could come up with a plausible story, I’ll never be able to explain my recovery or not being scarred.” He held her hand in both of his. 

She pressed her lips into a thin, hard line. “What are you trying to say?”

“I think you know, Mama. I have to go away. We have to let everyone think I’m dead.” He rubbed her hand between his. “I know this is an awful lot to ask of you – to keep this secret from everyone – but no one can know, Mama, just the three of us.”

She caught a sob in her throat and nodded. “I know. I’ve been thinking about it too. It’s just … I didn’t want to lose you, but I am.” She turned desperate eyes on him, and Jared felt like his heart was shattering. He pushed a loose strand of hair back behind her ear.

“I’m so sorry, Mama.”

“You didn’t make the decision. We did.” She glanced at Jensen who had sat down opposite Jared.

“No, Mama, I started all this. I, I brought Jensen back. I set the train in motion, and there was no stopping it after that.” He lifted her hand and kissed her fingers. “You can’t blame yourself. You didn’t want to lose me – either of you – and you made the right decision. You did.”

“I don’t know.”

“Mama, I’m not going to hurt people. I promise. And I’ll keep in touch somehow. I will. Okay?”

She pressed the tissue to her face and nodded. 

“Okay, I …” Jared pushed his chair back and stood. He had to get out of there, right now, before he fell apart. 

“I want to talk to Jensen for a moment,” Sherri said. 

“I …” Jared stopped. She what? Why? But he couldn’t argue; not now. He bent and kissed her on top of the head. “I love you, Mama.”

She patted his hand where it was resting on her shoulder. “I love you too, honey.”

Jared looked back and forth between his mother and his lover. With a look, Jensen said it was all right. 

“Okay, I’ll be outside,” Jared said and slipped out through the laundry room leaving the two at the table with tea cooling before them. They were both silent for a moment. Then, Sherri reached under the table into the folds of her robe and her hand came back up with a long shiny object. She laid the knife on the table.

Jensen raised his eyebrows. “Silver?”

She nodded. “If I stuck this in your heart, would you die?”

“Yes,” he said, and for just a moment thought how nice that might be. “But I wouldn’t let you, and you wouldn’t want to leave Jared alone. He really might become the monster you fear.”

“He isn’t?”

“No, he isn’t. He hasn’t hurt anyone, and he won’t. We can feed off each other. No one has to be hurt.”

She started to speak but stopped and pulled her lips between her teeth. She turned the mug between her fingers and then as though deciding something, looked up at him. “Why are you doing this?”

Jensen narrowed his eyes. “Doing what?”

“Staying with him. Helping him.”

“I …” He shook his head a little. He had to make her understand. “Because I love him.”

She scoffed and looked away.

He felt his throat tighten. “You think I’m lying.”

Her face flushed, and she leaned toward him. “I know about the things you did, the people you hurt. You’re incapable of love.”

Her words hit him like a slap. “No, I … You don’t know me. I didn’t have anyone to help me through the transition. That’s why it’s important for me to be there for Jared. I won’t let that happen to him.” He reached out for her hand, but she yanked it away.

He sighed. “Look, I admit that I did terrible things. I hurt people, killed some. I ruined the family’s reputation, but I didn’t curse it. You know that, right?”

She nodded with a small jerk. “Yes.”

“Believe me, please, when I tell you I’m not evil. I hadn’t killed anyone in years when my son drained me and buried me in the desert. I had changed, and I’ve changed even more since Jared found me. He’s changed me. You raised a wonderful son. You know that, don’t you?”

She nodded vigorously this time. “I know.”

“I don’t want to destroy that. I can’t pretend that he hasn’t changed, but he isn’t a monster. And he won’t become one if I can help it. I promise you that.”

She looked at him this time as though searching for an answer. “I’d give anything not to lose him,” she finally said.

“I know you would. I wish there were another way.”

She nodded and looked at where her fingers twisted the tissue. Jensen rose and walked to the door. 

“Jensen.” She pushed the knife, handle first, across the table toward him. “Just in case.”

“No. I told you, I won’t let that happen.”

“Please, you promised.”

^^o^^


	13. Chapter 13

Water-refracted light rippled across the ceiling, and white curtains fluttered at the sides of the open doors to the balcony. Jared heard quiet voices and the sound of a motorized gondola slowly cruising up the canal. He rolled onto his side and pushed the sheet down to his waist. Warm morning air slid over his exposed skin.

Who would have thought how much his life would change in six months. He should be graduating from the Masters program in a couple of weeks. Instead, he was someone, something else. He was not in Texas, not with Sandy. The path that he had seen for himself a year ago was lost. He’d taken a fork in the road – what should have been a brief diversion – and now his path was dark, winding, harrowing at times, and there was no end in sight. 

But the companion on this journey, who could have imagined …Jensen stretched like a cat and rolled halfway onto his stomach. Jared kissed the freckled shoulder nearest him and grinned as his maker’s eyes fluttered open. 

“Hey,” Jared whispered.

Jensen’s lips twitched into a smile. “Hey, darlin’.” He pushed Jared’s hair back from his eyes and leaned in for a kiss. “This is nice.” He laid his head back down on the pure white linen and closed his eyes. 

“Mm, it is,” Jared agreed. He didn’t take his eyes off Jensen. He liked watching him, knowing he was his and that they’d be together forever. After the past few months, there was no need to memorize the freckles dusting the high cheekbones and nose, the long lashes lying against his cheeks, or curved blush of lips. No, he already had them committed to memory. He just liked to remind himself that this was real. He chuckled, and Jensen’s eyes popped open.

“Want to share?”

“Just thinking of the night we met. I thought I was going crazy, but then I realized that I never would have imagined a vampire with freckles.” Jared grinned.

“Is that so? How would you have imagined a vampire?”

“Ah, you know, Christopher Lee, Bela Lugosi, maybe Gary Oldman.”

“Not Brad Pitt?”

Jared laughed. “No, I wasn’t into guys then. I thought vampires were just scary.”

“And now?”

“Antonio Banderas.”

Jensen punched him playfully on the shoulder. “Indeed?”

Jared threw his head back and laughed. “Indeed.”

Jensen propped himself up on an elbow and leaned over Jared. “We must be powerful, beautiful, and without regret,” he quoted. His eyes narrowed, and Jared looked away.

“No, maybe not,” he whispered. 

“Mmm.” Jensen brushed his lips lightly across Jared’s and let them land feather-light at the corner of his mouth. Without breaking contact they moved back to center, and Jared’s lips parted. Jensen’s tongue swept over his bottom lip, then inward, across the sharp edge of his teeth, and a drop of blood hit Jared’s tongue. His mouth surged forward, capturing Jensen’s tongue. His hand came up to cup the back of Jensen’s head, holding him; mouth devouring him. 

That little, tantalizing smear of blood across his tongue had his heart racing, and his entire body sizzled with want. He pushed himself up and over Jensen, pressing the other man into the mattress. Jared kneed Jensen’s legs apart and pulled a leg up over his shoulder. This wasn’t romantic or tender. This was urgent and demanding, and Jared pushed into Jensen’s still slick hole. It clutched at his cock, tight and hot, and Jensen bit his own lip. Blood pooled in the crease, and Jared licked at it. His tongue caught on the razor-sharp incisor, and iron rich, wine dark blood spilled onto Jensen’s mouth. His hips jerk against Jared, impaling himself farther on Jared’s cock. He gasped and threw his head back; lips obscenely painted with Jared’s blood. 

They moved together, hips and mouths, giving and taking, until their blood surged through one another’s veins like a brush fire sparking an inferno that Jared felt sure would leave the old palazzo nothing but a charred ruin along the canal. But even as he shuddered through his climax, he knew that Jensen remained hard and wanting, and he looked up into mischievous eyes.

“Finished?” Jensen asked.

“Not by a long shot, smart ass.”

Despite the desire to sink down next to Jensen and sleep, Jared pulled out of Jensen’s hole, catching his oozing cum and smearing it over Jensen’s dick. Jensen’s eyes crinkled at the corner in amusement. Jared crawled up over him and straddled Jensen’s hips. Without any preliminaries, he sank down on Jensen’s cock. He was not so well lubed or open, and he gasped at the intrusion. He didn’t let that stop him as he began to ride his lover, and within moments, Jensen was writhing beneath him. Jared couldn’t help chuckling at the noises coming from the big bad who was now at his mercy. Such pretty noises from such a pretty monster, Jared thought. And this was his forever and ever, amen. Jensen’s fingers were digging into Jared’s thighs, and his hips were coming off the bed to meet Jared’s with every thrust. 

Jensen tipped Jared forward a little, and his cock started hitting Jared’s prostate. Fuck, his cock was hard again, and he was getting too old for this – or maybe not. Maybe he’d always have the stamina of a 23-year-old. His eyes slammed shut as he felt yet another orgasm building, and fuck, Jensen hadn’t come once yet. But Jared couldn’t hold it back. He was fucking burning up, and he came with a gasp. 

Jensen arched up off the bed with a cry, and they were clutching at each other, mouths seeking, tongues lapping at bitten lips. Jared collapsed over Jensen.

“Fuck,” he said.

Jensen chuckled, and Jared sat up, looking down at a triumphant expression.

“Powerful, beautiful, without regret,” Jensen said.

“Smug bastard.” 

Jensen laughed outright. Jared slid off and fell to the side of Jensen. He gazed up at the gilded ceiling.

“I could go back to sleep,” he said.

“You do that. I’m going to take a shower.”

Jared threw an arm and a leg over Jensen. “No, don’t get up, Jen.” He nuzzled Jensen’s neck. 

Jensen pushed Jared’s arm off. “I already won. Give it up.” He slid out from under Jared’s leg and got up. “And quit pouting. There’s always tomorrow. Although, I always win.” He said without turning around. 

Jared watched Jensen’s naked ass as he walked way. “When you win, I win,” he called after him.

Jared lay there gaze drifting around the room, taking in the gilt-framed mirror, ornate tables and chairs, the arch of the bed above him, the marble floor stretching to the leaded glass doors leading to the balcony over the canal. He’d only seen things like this on PBS, and now they owned it. This palazzo, a country house in England, a ranch in Argentina, a penthouse in Manhattan, an apartment in Tokyo. Yeah, seriously, an apartment in Tokyo. And all of it was thanks to Miriam. 

Jared almost felt sorry for her in trusting Jensen in the end. On the drive to the roadhouse she had spilled the details of her financial situation. Even to the extent that Jensen was able to take control of her assets. She had really thought that Jensen had become monster enough to forgive her, to become her companion, to take the place of her brother. How desperate she must have been, how lonely, Jared thought.

And yet, she was a monster. She and James had nearly destroyed Jensen and that had led to so much heart ache, so much misery for so many people. No, he didn’t feel sorry for her. Her death had been just, a mercy really. They could have drained her and buried her, as Josh had Jensen, but in the end they’d cut off her head to be sure she was truly dead.

Jared sighed. He wasn’t going to sleep anymore. That was the one thing he missed – long, deep sleep. All they needed was a nap now and then. Sure, it left lots of time for other things, more recreational things in bed, but it’s not like they were short on time. Sleeping would be nice.

Jared climbed out of bed and went to gather clothes for a shower. Maybe he’d join Jensen. He smiled at the thought of a wet Jensen. Realizing he was out of clean underwear, he rummaged through Jensen’s underwear drawer, and there at the back was something … Jared’s hand closed around it and pulled it from the drawer. The scabbard was worn, the leather cracked, and the handle well worn. He pulled the blade from the scabbard and watery light glinted off silver. 

A picture flashed in his mind – his grandfather, a glass of scotch in one hand and the silver knife in the other – the knife that cut the throat of the Bloody Man. Jared’s breath caught in his chest, and his mind whirled with questions like a bug caught in a eddy, bounced against rocks, reaching for the safety of shore only to be swept along again. There was really only one answer, but he shied from it.

“Where did you get this?” he asked the approaching figure. 

“From your mother.” He stood not more than a step from Jared, pale and naked in the bright Venetian light.

“Why? Why would she give this to you? It’s kind of sick souvenir, isn’t it?” When Jensen didn’t respond, Jared went on. “You do recognize it, don’t you?”

Jensen looked confused and shook his head.

“This is Josh’s, your son’s.”

Jensen’s eyes widened with the realization.

Jared nodded. “Why would Mama give this to you?”

“Just in case,” Jensen said.

“In case what, Jen?” But he knew, didn’t he; he knew what it was for, and his jaw clenched, his heart sped up, and heat crawled thick and greasy along his guts. He tipped the point of the knife against Jensen’s chest.

“In case you became a monster.”

“You were going to kill me?” The tip of the knife slid under Jensen’s skin, and he hissed in response as the sliver burned into his blood.

“Us. I thought that if you became a monster, I would to kill us both.” He wrapped his fingers around Jared’s and pulled the knife from his flesh. Jared dropped his head and took a deep breath. “But I wouldn’t have. I’d never kill you.”

“And now?”

“Now,” Jensen prized the knifed from Jared’s hand. He took a step away, turned, and walked out onto the balcony. His pale flesh was washed in bright sunlight as he dropped the knife over the wrought iron railing into the water below. “It’s gone,” he said stepping back into the room. 

From below came a woman’s voice. “Hey, beautiful, come back.”

Jared couldn’t help but laugh at the picture Jensen must have presented to those on the canal below and across the way. Jensen’s feet were silent on the marble floor as he walked back across the room. He pulled the taller man into his arms and kissed him.

“Are we okay?” Jensen asked.

Jared nodded and examined the small cut on Jensen’s chest. “Are you?”

“It will heal.”

“I’m sorry.” He sat on the edge of the bed and pulled Jensen between his legs. He pressed his mouth to the cut, pushed his tongue into it. It burned like a hot a pepper. “Jesus, Jen, it’s …”

“Yeah, it burns.”

“I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”

Jensen ran his fingers through Jared’s hair. “It’s okay, love. It will pass.”

Jared laid his head against Jensen’s chest and wrapped his arms around his waist. Jensen’s fingers continued to card through his hair. They were all right. Whatever agitation he’d felt at finding the knife had disappeared under the murky waters of the canal with it. 

“Did you take your shower?”

“Mmm.”

“Wanna take another?”

Jensen’s muscles rippled against his cheek as he chuckled. “Why not? Venice can wait.”

~~ Two years later.

Jensen leaned against the brick wall in shadows of the alley. Across the way, a john was fucking a kid up against the wall. The kid’s jeans were around his knees and his hands were pinned to the wall in front of him. That’s okay. It’s what the kid had agreed to for fifty bucks, and Jensen could wait.

“You are one tight, little whore,” the john grumbled as he plowed into the kid, almost lifting him off his feet, and the kid made a hurt sound. Jensen felt a flash of anger but didn’t move. The kid pushed his hips back to keep from having his cock shoved into the wall. “Yeah, yeah, cumslut. You like that don’t you?” The john’s hips jerked once, twice, and he pulled out of the kid’s ass and tossed the condom aside. The kid pulled his jeans up and turned around, but the john was already walking away.

“Hey,” the kid called, “my money.”

“Fuck you, whore, what are you going to do about it?”

Jensen felt rage rise in him, but he didn’t have time to react because Jared already had the john by the throat, and he was holding him against the wall with one hand as he searched his pockets with the other. 

Jensen stepped out of the shadows, and Jared tossed the guy’s wallet to him. Jensen took a wad of bills from the wallet and pulled out four twenties. He held them out to the young hooker.

“Keep the change,” he said. “For your trouble.”

The boy took it and nodded. He couldn’t have been more than 17, Jensen thought with pity. Whatever. He couldn’t save them all.

“You didn’t see us here,” he said.

The boy shook his head and ran off down the alley.

“As for you.” Jensen turned his attention to the man Jared still had pinned to the wall. “How does he smell?”

“Like fear and CK,” Jared said with a grin. Jensen leaned close and scented the man.   
“Like dinner.”

It turns out Miriam had been wrong. They couldn’t survive just on each other. Occasionally, they needed a little infusion of human blood. So they took it from the cruel, the avaricious, the human monsters. 

They didn’t kill, usually. There was that serial killer in Indiana and a minor dictator in Indonesia, but for the most part they considered those good deeds. They simply left their prey with a lesson – There are worse monsters than you, and we might be back. 

It was satisfaction enough to get the blood they needed and leave their prey trembling and cowering; fearful in their own skin, doubting their sanity and their God.

Jensen stepped back and wiped his mouth. Jared let the man slump to the ground. 

“You really should avoid dark alleys,” Jared said.

Jensen grinned. “You never know what might be lurking in the shadows. There are bad things, monsters, that you only thought were in movies.”

“Like Christopher Lee.” Jared chuckled.

“Like Antonio Banderas,” Jensen corrected. 

Jared circled his arms around Jensen and kissed him. The taste of blood on Jared’s mouth made him hard, and his hips rolled against Jared. The kiss deepened and was interrupted only by a whimper from the john. Jared paused and kicked at the man’s foot.

“What are you still doing here? Run, stupid.”

The man crawled to his knees and, grasping the side of a dumpster, pulled himself to his feet. He staggered off down the alley.

“You know what sounds good?” Jared asked.

“Hmm?”

“Ribs.”

“Ribs? Really? We’re a long way from Texas.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, but we could head that way, you know.”

“Sure, why not.” Jensen took Jared’s wrist and dragged him down the alley. “But first, I need some you.”

^^o^^

There she was in the darkened kitchen, the only light from under the range hood. She had a steaming mug of tea in her hand as he stepped from the shadows. He realized he wasn’t who she expected. Her hand went to her mouth and her breath hitched in her throat.

“Oh God.” She set the mug on the table with a clunk. Tea slopped over the rim and pooled on the table.

He tipped his head and gazed at her. “He’s fine. He’s sleeping.”

She set heavily in the chair. “Then … he hasn’t killed.”

Jensen shrugged. “Only a couple.”

“Why …”

“Haven’t I killed him? Did you ever really think I would?”

“And the knife?”

“He found it. I lost it. How do you think he felt knowing his mother wanted him dead?” He leaned on the back of the chair opposite her.

“I didn’t. I don’t. I … You said you didn’t need to kill.” Her hands twisted around one another on the gold Formica.

“We don’t, but occasionally we do.” He leaned back against the counter. “Not often. If it makes you feel any better, we only kill bad people – murderers, despots – I like to think of it as a public service.”

She shook her head. “It’s murder.”

“They’re vermin, but usually, we just put the fear of … us in them.” 

“Why are you here? Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I know him. He’ll be here soon. He can’t stay away, and he can’t lie to you. So, you have to lie to him. You won’t call him a murderer or a monster. You love him. He’s your little boy.”

“Why should I?”

“Because it’s true. Because I’m telling you to.” He put every ounce of menace in his voice then. “Because I love him, and I won’t have you hurt him.”

“If you love him, you won’t harm me.”

Jensen smiled then. “You got me there. I won’t.” He pulled the chair out and sat down. He reached across the table and took her hands before she could pull them away. “Nothing could hurt him more than your disappointment. That hasn’t changed. Don’t do that to him. He can’t help what he needs to survive. I know that. We’re alike, he and I.”

“You promised me,” her voice was as bitter as dandelion greens.

“I lied.”

“Then you admit that you are monsters.” Her voice broke on the word.

“No, predators, maybe, yes, but not monsters. We don’t kill the innocent. Sometimes, we let some go that I really think the world would be better without; so, no, not monsters.”

“Do you have remorse?”

“For the wicked? No.”

“Well, then …”

He nodded and squeezed her hands. “I’m going to go now. Don’t hurt him. He’s the only thing that would keep me from harming you.” He released her hands and stood. “You do understand that, don’t you?”

^^o^^

Jensen was standing beside the glowing blue pool as the night sky fell down over him. The heat of the day’s sun radiated up through his bare feet. The glow of the city was off in the distance, and he knew the glass and steel house sprawled behind him. There was little noise but the wind across the scrubby land. He’d missed Texas. Much as their travels had interested him, this was still home.

He undid the button on his jeans and opened the fly. The night air felt good on his bare skin as he pushed the fabric off his hips and down his legs. He kicked them aside before stepping to the edge of the pool. His toes curled over the tile edge as he leaned forward. Behind him there was a rustle, and just as gravity was about to pull him into a dive, arms pulled him back against a hard, muscled chest. Jared’s chin rested on his shoulder.

“What were you doing at my parents’ house? You had to know I’d smell that you’d been there.” 

“Just having a chat with your mama. Didn’t you ask her?”

Jared’s hands flattened over his belly, holding him close. “No. We had other things to talk about.”

“Oh.”

“You didn’t answer my question, Jen.” Jared’s voice had dropped, and Jensen could hear the anger bubbling up.

He placed his hands over Jared’s. “I wanted to explain about the knife.”

Jared waited as though he thought Jensen should continue. “And?”

“I told her that I never had any intention of killing you. No matter what.”

Jared’s grip relaxed slightly. “I see, and she was okay with that?”

“Of course not. She said I broke a promise, and I admitted to being a liar.”

Jared dropped his arms with a huff and walked a few feet away. “Why? What was the point of that conversation?”

Jensen didn’t turn around. He continued to gaze into the pale blue glow. “I wanted her to understand.”

Jared stepped back behind him. Jensen could feel breath on the back of his neck. “What?”

“Us. What we are.”

Jared let his forehead bump against the back of Jensen’s head. He sighed. “God, Jen, why?”

“Because I love you.”

“It wasn’t your place.”

“To protect you?” 

“From my mama?”

“No one could hurt you more.”

“Just you.”

“Have I?”

“No,” Jared whispered before kissing the back of Jensen’s neck and across his shoulder. “No, you haven’t.”

Jensen turned then in Jared’s embrace and walked him backwards to a lounge chair. He pushed Jared back into the chair and settled between his spread legs with his back resting against Jared’s chest. He looked up at the stars.

“So how was your visit?”

“I’m dead, Jen.”

“I thought they had to wait seven years.”

“Apparently not.” He felt Jared shrug. “It’s not like I had much. The life insurance helped pay off the hospital. Who knew dying was so expensive.”

“Mmm.”

“Dad’s thinking about retiring. Meg’s doing great in college. Jeff’s getting married. And then there’s me …”

Jensen twisted around, but Jared wouldn’t meet his gaze. 

“I don’t think I should see her again.” A tear slid down Jared’s cheek, glistening in the watery glow.

“Oh, darlin’.” Jensen took Jared’s face in his hands. “Was it so bad?”

“Seeing me makes her sad now. I’d be better off dead to her. She could grieve; remember me the way I was, not as this.”

“This?”

“You told her I’m not a monster, didn’t you?”

“Of course I did.”

“You are a liar, Jen.”

“We aren’t monsters.”

“We are killers – like it or not – we can justify it all we like, but it isn’t any less true. You know that. Maybe we don’t kill often, but we don’t regret it.”

“We’re no different than the legal system or the military, better really. We make sure those we kill are guilty.”

“We enjoy it. We enjoy terrorizing the others.”

Jensen sat up. “They deserve it.”

“It isn’t for us to judge, you know. Judge not, lest …”

“God?” Jensen cut him off. “Really, love, you’re going to bring God into this?”

Jared slumped back in the chair. They stared at one another a moment, and then Jared smirked. “Ugh, this is starting to sound like an Anne Rice novel.”

Jensen laughed. “I don’t want to be Armand or Louis.”

“No.” Jared laughed.

“No.” Jensen kissed him. “You’re just grumpy. You know what you need? A swim and a snack.” He raised an eyebrow. 

^^o^^

Jared pushed his chair back on two legs and took a drink of beer. Two different football games played on TVs around the room, and the air was periodically filled with cheers or groans from various tables where mostly men in jeans and work boots downed pitchers of beer and plates of nachos and hot wings. Jared split his attention between the Cowboys and Jensen who was watching a young man in a trucker cap watch a drunk girl at the bar. 

Her foot slid off the rail, and she almost did a header onto the floor. It almost seemed a miracle that when she bent her jeans didn’t split and/or her breasts spill from her top. Jared knew where this was going. The guy was stalking her, and it didn’t matter how she was dressed, she wasn’t asking for it. There was only one thing she wanted right then. 

“Another,” she shouted at the bartender. He just shook his head. 

“Go home, Arlene, I’m cutting you off.”

“Fucker.” She slung her purse over her shoulder, and it promptly fell back off. She tried to grab it and swayed perilously close to falling over. “You suck ass, Ray,” she yelled at the bartender. 

“Yeah, yeah,” he said.

She headed for the door and trucker cap hesitated only a moment before following her. Jensen rose to his feet. From this perspective, he was tall, broad shouldered, solid, and Jared had a momentary urge to grab him and rub his face against denim. Fuck, he should not still have that kind of affect on me, Jared thought. Down boy. He took a drink of beer.

“I still have beer left,” Jared complained.

“I bet he puts up a fight,” Jensen said without taking his eyes off the figure moving toward the door.

Jared’s pulse quickened. “Yeah?” He made to follow Jensen who grinned back over his shoulder then.

“I know how you like it when they put up a fight, darlin’.”

“Yeah,” Jared said, and he was moving ahead of Jensen as adrenaline rushed through his veins. He caught sight of the cap moving through the darkened parking lot and quickened his pace.

He heard Jensen laugh. “That’s right. You go catch him for me, love.”

-30-


End file.
